A Man Called Fenrir
by Intestines
Summary: People aren't born monsters. This is the story of Fenrir Greyback, who was just a man, and what happened to him to turn him into a monster. Book!canon-compliant. COMPLETE
1. Blood Moon

**Warnings:** A descent into madness, a family feud, alcohol, death, violence, gore, cannibalism, attacks on children, briefest mention of self-mutilation. All that nasty stuff. If you would be upset or disturbed by any of this, have a weak stomach or are a small child, look away now.

_Since the release of Remus Lupin's story on Pottermore, this novel no longer complies entirely with JK Rowling's universe. However, it does fit with canon as shown in the books. I will be pulling this story from the site and reposting after a rewrite in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

**Blood Moon**

No-one was scared of Fenrir Greyback. Why would they be? He was eighteen years old, lanky and awkward-looking, freckly and stubbly. He'd been trying to grow a beard for three weeks, since summer had begun, but hadn't had much success. His mother had said it looked like a baby rabbit was nesting in his chin and told him to shave it. But he was sticking with it, because he was moving out anyway, and thought the beard would make him look impressive, particularly to potential employers.

He stood in the living room of his new house, looking at his reflection in the cracked mirror and stroking said 'beard'. The mirror hung above the fireplace, and was just about the only thing in the house. It had been left by the previous owner – a little bonus. The rest of the walls, and the floorboards, were bare. Every surface was covered in dust, aside from the footprints perspective owners and the estate agent had left when they'd taken The Tour. It wasn't a fancy place, just a little one-bedroom house tucked away in a corner of London, but to Fenrir it meant everything because it meant freedom. It meant getting away from his parents and doing Whatever He Wanted.

And it was great weather for it, too, he thought. The sun was high in the sky, beaming through the window and, even though it highlighted the excessive dust floating through the air, it also filled the room with light and made it difficult to care about such trivial things as grime. It made it difficult, in fact, to care about anything at all, except spending the rest of the day stretched out on a patch of grass absorbing the sunbeams. Fenrir promised himself he would do just that, after he'd unpacked.

With a little groan (a sign of protest; everything seemed to be an effort in weather like this) he knelt down and flipped open the locks on his suitcase. "_Accio_," he muttered, and a bookcase flew from the case and smacked him on the nose. His eyes watered, and the bookcase toppled over, sending fresh dust flying into the air. Fenrir whimpered, and reminded himself that, when unpacking, it was sensible to stand well back, and not get hit in the face by flying furniture.

He pointed his wand firmly at his nose, and tried several times, with several hand motions and pronunciations, to get that spell right. _What is it? You know the one. The one for fixing noses and things._ Fenrir had never mastered that particular spell. It would have been useful, no doubt, but hey, he sure could turn a hedgehog into a great pincushion. Finally getting the spell right ("_Episkey_!") he stood up and away from the case, and levitated the bookshelves into the corner. Next up was the armchair. _At least it's soft._But he didn't injure himself after that, although there was a close call with the dinner plates. He just ended up a bit shell-shocked, covered in dust, and, if he was honest, fairly happy with the way the decorations had turned out.

"Well," he said, to no-one at all, looking around cheerfully. "That ought to do it." Proud of his handiwork though he was, he decided he'd have to admire it at a later time. There were only six hours of daylight left, after all, and who knew how long the sun would stick around? He closed his suitcase and set it next to the sofa, then reached into his pocket in order to count out the money he kept stowed there. _Five Galleons and fourteen sickles_. That ought to be enough to get him a couple of Firewhiskeys, at least. He'd head to the pub after he'd taken in a bit of sun. Get to know the locals.

/

The street on which he'd chosen to live consisted mostly of red-brick dwellings that Fenrir was sure had once looked pleasant and comfortable. Certainly there was nothing wrong with them from the inside (unless you counted the wonky water heater in Fenrir's attic), but several of the windows of the uninhabited houses had been put in and it was hard to find a wall that wasn't covered in graffiti. _Jonesy is a wanker._ Fenrir made a note of it. He walked slowly along the avenue, taking in the smell of the barbecues in the back gardens. His stomach growled slightly. Children were kicking footballs and playing with Frisbees outside their houses, screaming and laughing. Someone down the road was planning a water fight. A gaggle of excited children scurried past Fenrir, giggling excitedly about how Peter was planning on using a bucket instead of a pistol. _Treacherous._

As he rounded the corner at the end of the road, the estate opened onto a larger road, which in turn opened up onto what looked to be the beginnings of the town. _Ah, the suburbs._ Aside from the houses, there were rows of shops – the kind of Muggle shops that sold things that no-one would need, ever, like 'windscreen wipers' and 'bubble wrap'. Wondering if he should be glad, or feel foolish, that he didn't know what Magic Sand was, Fenrir strolled past the sprawling windows.

The wizard who had sold him the house (short, grizzled, and dressed in an orange jumpsuit as a Muggle disguise) had given him directions to the Hippogriff's Head, which was, apparently, a wizarding pub, and located just beside the bowling alley. The sun made it hard to think. Fenrir couldn't tell where the bowling alley was. All he was hoping for now was a bench, somewhere to sit and rest.

There was a park in the town; he could hear it from where he stood in front of Barry's Burgers. Well, he could hear the children in it playing. The town seemed to hold many families. Fenrir wasn't used to it. He'd grown up in the countryside. His closest neighbour was a tree, his closest human neighbours were a mile off, and the closest neighbours with whom he could sustain a conversation (wizards; his parents didn't permit him to socialise with Muggles when he was a child) were five miles away. The park didn't seem to be exclusively for children, though. As Fenrir approached it, he could see Muggle parents keeping an eye on their offspring from the benches alongside the play area, Muggles walking their dogs, Muggles running on the expanses of grass that ran for half a mile to the fence, marked "No Ball Games". There was a ball game happening a short distance off, but it seemed that the sign was more a suggestion than anything else.

Settling himself on an available patch of grass and reclining, Fenrir shielded his eyes with the crook of his elbow. _Lovely. _How could anything in the world possibly be wrong?

/

As the sun crept away, the park emptied. The cries of the children lessened. They were reduced to the odd screech from somewhere behind the terraced housing.

Fenrir had left when the rays had first begun to fade. The clouds had obscured the light and there was no point, he decided, in shivering on the grass when he could be in a cosy pub with a Firewhiskey and a pie. He had gotten up and left the way he came; it would be easier to find his way home from a street that he already knew.

The bowling alley wasn't hard to find. It was a giant, white bricked building, embarrassingly American-esque, with a sprawling car park empty of cars and inhabited mostly by discarded fish and chips wrappers. A large red sign above the door read "BOWLING. MUSIC. FOOD." It was shut for the night, the neon lights turned off and the music silenced. Fenrir cautiously walked behind the building.

A dark alley, home to many skips and wheelie bins, greeted him. The opposite wall held what appeared to be the back door to several businesses. Fenrir counted five. As he watched, a sixth door, between the second and third, appeared, pushing them aside. This new door was older than the others. It had been worn with the years, but mystical creatures of all description were carved with care into the frame. The brass plague above the door read "Hippogriff's Head". Fenrir entered.

The pub was alive. Fenrir got the feeling that the entire local community used this place as their retreat. Everything in the pub was worn, in a homely sort of way: it showed signs of usage, but that just meant it was well-loved. Music played from the wireless behind the bar, which was crowded with witches and wizards. One had what Fenrir could have sworn was a dripping Grindylow on his shoulder, and was feeding it sliver of raw fish. Everyone was trying to place their orders, and the two barmaids were bustling constantly up and down, trying to accommodate.

A bewitched dart zoomed past Fenrir's head, sending a shower of gold sparks flying. He ducked just in time to avoid loosing an ear. "Sorry, mate!" he heard a voice cry. The pub was crowded and difficult to manoeuvre in. Fenrir shuffled sideways, trying to make his way past the cloak tails (and one living, furry tail) that surrounded the bar without stepping on anyone. He found a free spot at the end of the bar, just next to the toilets door, and rested his elbows on it, quite prepared to wait his turn, for a few minutes anyway.

"Alright?" said a large man standing to his left. Fenrir nodded. The man was at least a foot taller than him, with a broken nose and very little hair. "You're not local, are you?" asked the man, apparently not fazed by Fenrir's less-than-enthusiastic response. Judging by his breath, he'd already had a few drinks.

"I just moved in today," said Fenrir, deciding it would be best to answer the man rather than brush him off. He seemed harmless enough, despite his bulk, and his little eyes, although pale and watery, seemed kind enough.

"Ah, 'sthat right? Where to then?"

"You know that house on Half-Moon Street?"

"I do."

"That one."

"Ah, that one. That one's been on the market forever, that has. Glad someone took it."

"Why is that?"

"I'm in the office for the Floo Network Registration Committee, at the Ministry, you know? That fireplace has been givin' us plenty of trouble. One day it's in, the next it's out, never two days in a row, you know what I'm sayin'?"

_Not really._ "I think I do. You'll be glad to finally connect it, then?"

"That's a bit of an understatement, there." He lifted his tankard and drank deeply.

"Can I take your order?" The barmaid had approached, an empty tray balanced on one arm. She looked young, too young to be working in a bar, at any rate, Fenrir thought, but he ordered a Firewhiskey just the same.

Taking a sip from the glass, Fenrir felt the burning sensation spread through his body and shuddered slightly – but it wasn't unpleasant at all. He hadn't had much experience with Firewhiskey before this. He'd tried it in his fifth year at school, entirely illegally. His friend Lestrange had bought a batch off of a shady-looking wizard in Hogsmeade, and they'd drank it in their common-room at one in the morning. It had felt as though their lungs were on fire and left them with pounding headaches the following day. They'd also attempted to climb the drapery, but they'd agreed never to mention that. As such, Fenrir had been a bit apprehensive about trying the stuff again on his seventeenth birthday, but he'd only had a couple and that wasn't so bad. He was getting better at controlling himself when under the influence, he thought, and tonight, he didn't have any qualms about celebrating his new address.

"Ernest Clish, by the way," said the bald man, offering Fenrir a hand.

"Fenrir Greyback," said Fenrir, taking it. "Whereabouts is it that you live?"

"The thatched cottage by the church," said Clish. "The Muggles think 'sjust a burnt-out ruin. You know how many times I have to scare their kids away? They come 'round wantin' to have _a look around_. I keep asking the Ministry to let me put Muggle-repellin' charms on, but there's some sub-clause in Section D49 that… well…" He huffed and drained his tankard.

"Very frustrating, I'm sure," said Fenrir politely, regretting asking, and he slowly attempted to shuffle away from Clish and the bar. His movements must have looked like an awkward dance, because by the time he was a couple of feet away from the bar he found himself in the middle of a bunch of witches, who were staring at him and giggling. "Ladies," said Fenrir, tipping an imaginary hat. It must have been the Firewhiskey. It had seemed charming as he was doing it, but as soon as he let his hand drop to his side, he cursed himself inwardly – he'd looked a fool, and he knew it.

But at least one of the witches seemed to appreciate what she must have taken for humour. As her friends turned and went to get seats, she broke away from the group, and moved towards Fenrir, smiling. "Hi there."

"What? Er, oh, hello, hi," Fenrir spluttered; he hadn't been expecting that at all. The girl was pretty, very pretty indeed, with golden hair and clear green eyes. They were sparkling, playful, and reminded Fenrir of the sea. "What's your Fenrir? I have a name, er… Ah." He stopped talking then, and raised a hand to cradle his face in embarrassment. The girl giggled. "Let me start again. I'm, ah, Fenrir. What's your name?"

"I'm Malvina," she said.

"That's nice," nodded Fenrir.

Malvina shrugged. "If you say so. I reckon you'd say that even if my name was Agnes or something."

"My mother is called Agnes," said Fenrir suspiciously.

"Oh," said Malvina, and a tinge of pink crept into her cheeks. "That's… sort of embarrassing."

"Never mind," said Fenrir, "would you like a drink?"

"Please," said Malvina with a shameful smile.

Malvina took a seat while Fenrir made his way back to the bar and again prepared to wait it out. Eventually collecting the elf-made wine (he'd never had it before, but it was blood-red and smelled delicious) he found Malvina sitting towards the back of the bar, where it was darker, and quieter. The sounds of the conversing customers were reduced to a low hum. The music was softer here, a gentle murmur rather than a throbbing assault on the ears.

"Here you go." He set the glass in front of her and took a seat opposite.

"Thank you," she said, raising the glass to her lips and taking a sip.

"So, are you from 'round here?" asked Fenrir as casually as he could. Inside, he was celebrating. _Oh _yeah_!_

"I was born in Scotland. I moved to Lancashire with my mother when I was two. That's where I grew up. I've only lived here for two months. And yourself?" She took another sip of her wine.

"Nah, I just moved here today. I've… just left school, you see."

"Oh, really? I'd no idea you were so young."

"Ah." Fenrir looked into his Firewhiskey. Perhaps he should have felt embarrassed, but, taking another sip, he felt himself filled with fresh courage. "Well, I'm of age, so I hardly think it would matter. Also," he added, gesturing at her with one finger, some Firewhiskey sloshing over the brim of the glass, "I got three O's in my NEWTs, so if it's someone with good career prospects you're after, I'm your man."

Malvina chuckled. "That's very admirable. I didn't take NEWTs myself. Didn't have the drive. I wish I had now… I would have applied to the Ministry if I'd the chance, I'd have loved to have been an Auror. I just love the whole sense of adventure, you know?"

"Mhm."

"But instead, I've been working as a barmaid for five years," she sighed. "Still, I've gotten a job at Madam Malkin's, you know the robe shop in Diagon Alley?"

"I do. Lovely place. Must be nice to have someone else serving you, then, eh?"

"I'll say!" she laughed. They both drank again, and she asked, "So you went to Hogwarts?"

"'Course I did. Where else?"

"Were you there when I went? I must be at least five years older than you; I don't remember you at all."

Fenrir shrugged. "I don't think you were. I would have remembered _you_, at least. You're bloody beautiful." _Curse that Firewhiskey_.

But she laughed, and blushed again. "That's sweet. So what house were you in? No, wait, let me guess." Fenrir smirked and sat back, spreading his arms in a gesture that said, _Come on then_. "Well," Malvina said, "I know you're clever because you've told me about your NEWTs, so unless you're lying…" She narrowed her eyes. "You've been very nice to me, but, again, you're either lying or maybe you just fancy me. You seem pretty confident, but I'd blame the Firewhiskey for that." Fenrir licked his lips, where a couple of drops still lingered. "I'd say you were in… Ravenclaw?"

"No." He lent forward and picked his glass up again. "I was in Slytherin."

Malvina wrinkled her nose. "I thought you seemed nice, too."

Fenrir laughed into his drink. "What were you in? _Hufflepuff_?" He meant it as a joke, but Malvina straightened up and gave him a stern look.

"I was, actually."

Fenrir spluttered into his Firewhiskey. "Blimey." Malvina smiled in a good-natured sort of way – most Hufflepuffs were used to being teased – and traced her fingers around the base of her glass. "Hey." Fenrir had caught out of the corner of his eye a flash of bright red that didn't quite match the wine. "You're bleeding."

"Oh." She looked down at her hands. There was a cut on the knuckle of the middle finger on her right and, and it was bleeding angrily. "Yeah, that's… that's an old cut." She lifted her hand and cradled it. "I got it a couple of weeks ago. I've no idea why it hasn't stopped bleeding yet. It doesn't hurt, though."

"How did you get it?" asked Fenrir with concern. "Maybe you should visit St. Mungo's. They're very good with wounds and things."

"Oh, I know," she said, "but this isn't anything like that. It's not a wound, it's just a funny cut. I think it must have hit a particular vein or something."

_I doubt it._ "How did you get it?"

"I was bitten by a puppy." She gave a small laugh. Fenrir made a puzzled face. "I know, it looks worse, doesn't it?"

"Yes," frowned Fenrir. "Are you sure it doesn't hurt? What happened? Did the puppy assault you?"

She gave a bark of laughter. "Well, not exactly. I was heading home from work one night and I saw this little puppy hiding behind a Muggle's car. It looked frightened, and I just thought, well, maybe I'll give it a pet, make sure it's okay, take it home, or whatever. When I started getting near to it, it was shrinking away from me, but it didn't run, so I tried to scratch behind its ears. But, it nipped my finger. Then it ran off." She paused, and sipped her wine again. "Funny-looking dog, though," she mused. "Weird, long legs."

Fenrir raised his eyebrows. "Well, you should try _Episkey_," he shrugged. "It's always worked for me."

"I have. I'll just have to wait for it to clear up on its own, I suppose," she sighed.

"Hm. At least it's not bothering you, that's something to be grateful for."

"Yes," she agreed. "We must look for things to be grateful for."

Fenrir nodded. "Friends, family, our health, the weather, magic, music… Can I buy you another drink?"

"I'd like that." She gave him a smile. Fenrir returned it. It looked like it was going to be a good night.

/

Over the course of the next two weeks, Fenrir met Malvina in the Hippogriff's Head almost every evening. Fenrir came to know her well, and appreciate the little things that made her – her smile, her laugh, the way the skin around her eyes crinkled when she did so, the way she held herself. The little imperfections – her slightly crooked nose, the bleeding knuckle that still hadn't healed, the fact she was a Hufflepuff… that didn't matter. He'd found, as far as he was concerned, the perfect woman.

_That_ particular night, she was wearing robes of a deep blood-red. Her lips were painted scarlet and Fenrir couldn't take his eyes off them. They were drinking Butterbeer – after all, it was a weeknight. The pub was just as crowded as ever, and the music seemed louder. Malvina began to tap the table in time to the music. Fenrir looked at her with amusement.

"I love this song, don't you?" she asked him.

"I don't know," he said. "What is it?"

"_Blood Moon_, by Dragon's Tale."

_Never heard of it._ "Oh, yeah. I like this one." He began to bob his head.

Malvina chortled. "You look ridiculous when you do that. Do you want to dance properly?"

"What?" Fenrir stopped his head-bobbing immediately. "No, I can't dance at all."

"Oh, come on," she said, standing up and putting a hand on his arm. "I'll lead."

"No, I'll… I'll look stupid."

"Of _course_ you won't," she said. "Look, loads of people are dancing, they won't even notice you, and…" She leant in and whispered in his ear. "_They're not very good anyway_."

Fenrir smirked and got to his feet. He wasn't good at it, but if Malvina wanted him to dance, then dance he would. He held his arms out, and Malvina placed them in the appropriate position – one on her back, one on her hip. There wasn't a lot of room, so mercifully the dancing wouldn't have to be too extravagant.

The tune sounded to Fenrir like much of the other music the wizarding world was producing at that time – a slow rock 'n' roll tune, with heavy guitar and lyrics about dark magic. The lead vocalist rasped, as though he was part goblin. But all the same, thought Fenrir, as they waltzed to the odd beat, there was something likable about it. Perhaps it was just because he was in Malvina's arms, but regardless, he knew he wouldn't forget this moment for a very long time. He buried his nose in her hair, kissed her red lips, kissed her neck.

/

They spent that night at Fenrir's house. He'd cleared the dust from every inch of it, and now truly thought of it as home. It was well-furnished – he didn't have a lot of money, but he'd made sure the house was comfortable. The bed was a large four-poster that dominated the room. Beside the bed sat an antique oak cabinet (it had belonged to his grandmother) and a heavy bronze candlestick. He'd let the candle burn itself out that evening; he had fallen asleep without realising it, content, with Malvina by his side.

But he was woken late at night (or was it the early morning? The light was grey and watery) by a strange groaning sound.

"Hmm?" He slowly blinked his eyes open. Nothing in the room looked different, but he was facing the door. The noise seemed to be coming from behind his back, towards the window… He rolled over, squinting in the dim. "Malvina? You alright?" Because the noise was coming from Malvina; she was under the duvet, which was visibly shaking. "Malvina, are you alright?" he asked again. There was no answer, but the groaning became louder, more violent. Frowning, Fenrir pulled the blanket back, and what he saw would remain imprinted on his eyes for the rest of his life.

Malvina was curled on top of the sheet, her body in a twisted, inhuman position. From every part of skin Fenrir could see, grey fur was sprouting. Sharp fangs protruded from her mouth, which was lengthening into a snout. Her eyes were bulging, and changing from the sea-green Fenrir had loved to a dull yellow. Her ears grew into tufted funnels, and her hands were becoming paws, her nails claws.

Fenrir screamed. The warped animal, barely resembling Malvina anymore, caught sight of him, and let out a pitiful whimper. Fenrir didn't know if it was trying to speak or just making animal sounds, but that didn't matter, because the next moment the whimper became a snarl, and the beast lunged for Fenrir. He barely had any time to react. The creature's paw collided with the side of his face, knocking him to the floor. As it stood above him, peering down, Fenrir did the only thing he could think of and aimed a kick at its face. It was momentarily stunned; blood trickled from its chin and its eyes became unfocused.

Fenrir scrambled to his feet, but that wasted precious time; the creature had already regained its form and was crouched on the bed, preparing to pounce. Fenrir knew he had only a few seconds. He scanned the room, looking for anything he could use as a weapon. His wand was on the windowsill, behind the beast, and he knew he'd have no chance of outrunning it. Besides, he didn't know any spells that would defend him against something like this. He didn't even know what it was. His mind was in shock, and he couldn't place it. He knew he'd seen something like it before, years ago, in a textbook, but as to its name he had no idea. It didn't matter what it was called when it wanted to kill you. The only thing that would have helped him was the accompanying text: How to kill the beast. But he couldn't recall it now, and seized the only weapon he could think of – the bronze candlestick from his grandmother's cabinet.

With a howl, the werewolf lunged, and Fenrir remembered – "the werewolf responds only to the call of its own kind" – it had been a Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson he'd read about them – he hadn't paid attention in that class – was there a proper defence? It didn't matter. As the werewolf sprung at him, he swung the only defence he had. He missed, and the werewolf's jaws clamped onto his upper arm and it began to tear him apart with its teeth. Shrieking, Fenrir swung the candlestick again and again, and eventually it collided with the werewolf's skull. The werewolf opened its jaws and yowled in pain and fury, but Fenrir didn't hear it. All he heard was the blood pounding in his ears. He swung the candlestick again, until the blood began to flow from the werewolf's head, and it collapsed. Fenrir gathered all the energy he could – he only had one good arm but the adrenaline made him feel stronger than he ever had in his life – and brought the base of the candlestick crashing down on the werewolf's head. It didn't move.

The pain was like nothing he'd ever felt before. The fangs had seared his flesh and felt as though fire was spreading through his body. It wasn't warm, it wasn't comforting, it wasn't Firewhiskey – it was a forest fire, and he was sure he was going to die. The blood seeped from his arm and spread over the carpet. He felt woozy as he lost it; the adrenaline was gone now. The world swam before his eyes. It was hazy. It was fading.

He saw one thing before everything went black. Even in his woozy state, he could understand it, and it made what had happened infinitely worse. The werewolf's body was changing. The fur was receding. The paws were shrinking. The claws were withdrawing. The fur turned from grey to gold. Its snout shrank and became a nose. And what was lying on the floor was no longer a werewolf, but the body of Malvina, and her skull had been crushed by the candlestick, and it was her blood that stained the carpet too.

"No," Fenrir whimpered. He tried to speak louder, to deny what had happened, to wake up, but he couldn't. His voice faded, Malvina faded, everything faded. "No… no… no…"


	2. The Werewolf Support Services

**Chapter Two**

**The Werewolf Support Services**

It was muggy when he woke up next, far too loud and full of bright lights. He could hear people moving around, behind what sounded like a wall of glass. The thought occurred to him that he might be the feature of an exhibit (though he didn't know why) and he jolted awake. He found himself lying in a bed with curtains drawn around it, somewhat uncomfortably. The bed was soft, but there were thick bandages all over the left side of his body, which made it difficult to move. _Why am I here?_ He couldn't remember; the last thing he could recall happening (though he didn't know the details) was having a terrible nightmare, possibly about a dog…

The curtains were pulled open and a plump old woman came in backwards, wheeling a trolley and shouting to some unseen person. "Yes, and Mr Straughan needs his potion before six o'clock this evening so make sure you're on top of things, Hoof." She drew the curtains and turned around. "Oh, Mr Greyback. You're awake again," she said, giving him a big smile and moving to the head of the bed in order to plump up his pillows.

"Again?" said Fenrir, and his voice grated on the walls of his throat. He coughed, and tried to sit up while the woman did her thing, though it hurt, and she told him to relax. "Where am I?"

"St Mungo's, dear. Dai Llewellyn ward." She busied herself with mixing up a potion from the ingredients she carried on her trolley.

"I… why?"

"Don't you remember?" she asked, in a casual, offhand sort of voice, which seemed to suggest she asked people this all the time, and he really should, because it would make her life a lot easier.

"I… no."

"Alright, dear, I've already told you, but open up, now, and drink this, and I'll explain again."

"I… again?" said Fenrir, as she approached him with a little bowl and put her hand behind his head in order to ensure he drank it all up. It tasted strongly of metal. Fenrir spluttered as she took the bowl away.

"Yes, dear, you woke up yesterday, and we went through all of this."

Fenrir didn't know what to say. He couldn't remember waking up yesterday. He couldn't remember seeing this old witch before in his life. She sighed and said while she mixed another potion, "We had a little talk about how you'd come to find yourself here, do you remember?"

"I… no."

"Do try not to stutter so much, dear. You told me about the nightmares you'd been having, do you remember those?"

Fenrir thought about it, and considered his response carefully. Afraid to get it wrong, he said, "Sort of."

"Do you know what they were about, dear?"

"A… a dog, I think."

"That's right, dear. You were found by a member of the Ministry's maintenance squad. They'd come round to fix your water heater." Fenrir was silent. He remembered vaguely, several weeks ago, receiving an owl carrying a letter that mentioned a water heater. When the Healer was satisfied he had nothing to add, she continued, "They found you on the floor. You'd lost a lot of blood. You'd been attacked, you see."

"I… I was attacked?"

"Yes, dear," she said, lifting the second bowl and crossing to his bedside. He looked at it warily. The liquid inside was grey in colour, like old bathwater, and did not look scrumptious in the least.

"By who?"

"By whom, dear."

"By whom, then?"

"By a werewolf," she said matter-of-factly, as she pressed the bowl to his mouth. He choked and spat out the potion (which actually turned out to be quite scrumptious).

"By WHAT?"

"That's right," she said sadly, looking at the spilt potion and getting out her wand to clean up the mess. "We found the body of the werewolf next to yours. It was dead already. _Scourgify_! You certainly did a very good job of defending yourself," she said. Fenrir said nothing. He was turning the thought over and over in his head. If he was attacked by a werewolf, that would mean that he, too, was – _Malvina_. The thought came rushing like a jet of boiling water. That was the last thing he'd seen, but she – she couldn't have been—

"Now, of course," the Healer continued, "you will have to stand trial for its murder, but don't worry about that, it's not a crime to kill a werewolf, as long as you can prove that's what it actually was. And there are certainly ways of doing that, although it does take longer after they've died… But you've got to take a week or so to recover, so everything should be sorted out for the date of your trial, which is next Wednesday."

Murdered. He'd murdered Malvina, that's what he'd done. He felt sick. He wanted the vile old woman to stop talking, she didn't care about his Malvina; she didn't even see her as a human, just as some sort of dog that needed to be put down. But he couldn't face the fact that Malvina had been a werewolf, because that would mean—

"And, of course, now that you've been bitten the curse has been passed to you," she said. "Which means, I'm afraid, that after the next full moon – which is in three weeks – you'll have to register yourself with the Werewolf Registry. I'll leave some leaflets with you, telling you where to find the offices – they're part of the Beast division at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the Ministry."

"I… what?" Fenrir blinked. "I'm not… I mean, she wasn't… I can't… I'm not a werewolf!" he spluttered.

"I'm afraid so, dearie," said the Healer, who didn't seem concerned at all, rather, she was packing up her bowls and preparing to leave. "I've seen it happen all too often," she said on her way out, and Fenrir wasn't sure if she was talking to him or herself. "Young, reckless… Strange obsessions… Reckon it's okay to try anything once and damn the consequences…"

And she was gone. She pulled the curtains closed and he heard her footsteps shuffling away, accompanied by a squeaking trolley wheel.

Fenrir shook his head, and tried to look across at the leaflets she'd left by his bedside, but it was too painful to move his neck. He thought about what she'd told him. Werewolves were scum, everyone knew that. They were dangerous, filthy. They were scroungers, not wanting to help the community, only hurting it… They were a drain on resources, like a leech, responsible for bloodshed and destruction… But Malvina hadn't been like that… She wasn't… couldn't have been. She wouldn't have hurt him like that. There must have been some mistake. Perhaps a werewolf had gotten into the room, and attacked them both, then run off… yes…

But even as he thought it, Fenrir remembered seeing her change. He remembered peeling back the bedclothes, and that horrible, twisted version of Malvina he'd found there. It was something spat from the mouth of Hell itself. But Malvina wasn't like that. He remembered it changing back, too… Its demonic features had faded and she'd become an angel again… But an angel with a gaping hole in her head. And it had been Fenrir who had done that to her. He couldn't bear that thought. If and _if_ she had been a werewolf, he decided, she didn't know about it. She would never have hurt him, just as he would never have hurt her if he'd have known. It was only the shock that had made him strike out…

And he kept turning these thoughts over and over in his head, thinking about what it meant to be a werewolf, and what it meant to be a murderer, and he fell asleep thinking about it. And his dreams were haunted by the ghost of Malvina, and wolves that talked like people, and whispered to him about death.

/

Days passed. Fenrir had been lying in bed almost constantly. He needed to rest, he was told. His bandages had been removed, revealing ugly scars. He'd been visited now and again by the old witch he hated – he'd learnt her name was Healer Murrish – and once or twice by a couple of other Healers, but they never stayed very long. They just looked at him with interest, and asked probing questions about his situation. Was he married? Was his home life unhappy? Did he feel cut off from the rest of the human race? One, a tall, thin man, balding, very ugly, had gone poking around in his mouth, muttering about canines and molars without so much as a warning. He was wearing some gloves made of metal, which was just as well, because Fenrir nearly bit his finger off, snarling at him to get out. The man interestedly made a note and then did so without saying goodbye.

Lying in hospital was neither fun nor productive, and all he did was try and reason more about Malvina's death. _It was just a dream_, was one of his theories. _They're all lying to me_, was another. There were days when he resigned himself to the fact that all he had been told was true, and days when he grilled Murrish about how they knew it was a werewolf that had attacked him. She gave him a lot of guff about 'unmistakeable signs' and made him swallow potions that tasted like carpet.

His dreams were exceptionally vivid. It seemed that a night did not pass when he didn't dream he was flying on the back of a skeletal black horse, soaring over London. He'd try to get a grip on the horse's skin, but it was too slippery, and he'd inevitably slide off and fall to his death.

The sun rose on another day. Another Wednesday. The day of his trial. Three Healers, all male, came to see him that morning. He was given something to drink, a thick, black potion that glittered like the night and made him feel woozy to the point that he didn't notice when he went blind. He felt their fingers gripping his shoulders, pulling him into a chair which wrapped chains around his wrists and ankles.

The next thing he knew he was being prodded in the back of the neck with a wand. Someone was muttering an incantation. The darkness that had swallowed his vision was lifted, and a chamber swam into view.

It was cold, and grey, but had a greenish tinge, as though they were underwater. The Healers where gone; in the room with him was a man he didn't recognise. He looked as though he would have been tall when standing upright, but he was hunched over at the shoulders, taking a good half a foot off. He was remarkably skinny, with a crooked pair of glasses. He was balding and had a bushy brown beard, and was reading from a long piece of parchment he was holding inches away from his nose.

"Eugh," said Fenrir, trying to lift his hands in order to rub the sleep fro his eyes. They were still chained tightly to the chair. "Whaddaya want with me now?"

"Fenrir Greyback?" said the man, looking up from the parchment. His voice was deep and slow.

"Yeah."

"My name is Isaac Fraser. I am your defence counsel."

"Just you?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Isaac Fraser explained the situation, though Fenrir wasn't really listening. What he gathered was that there was absolutely no reason he should be held for this, and the trial was more a matter of formality than anything else.

"The important thing to remember," Fraser said, "is that no-one truly believes you are guilty. They have seen cases like this many times before. When you step into that chamber, you must simply stick to the honest version of events, and you will be fine. Don't worry, son," he added, making a face which Fenrir thought must have been an attempt at a fatherly smile. "This'll all be over in no time." And Fenrir believed him.

/

The walls of the court were made of stone, and the only light came from the torches set in them. This lack of light gave the room an unpleasant, shadowy feel. Benches surrounded the centre of the court, rising in tiers. All were empty but the few to the very top, which had a cluster of witches and wizards sitting very still and silent. All of them, Fenrir noted, seemed to be at least one hundred.

"Let us begin," said a decrepit wizard sitting in the middle of the front row. There followed a long list of names, and dates, and charges, none of which Fenrir was able to take in. Instead, he let his mind drift, thinking about what he was going to do when he was finally allowed to go home. Clean up the mess, he'd have to clean up the mess…

"You are Fenrir Greyback, of Number Seventeen Half-Moon Road, London?" A wheezy voice interrupted his train of thought.

"Hmm? Oh. Yes."

"And you admit that you, in full knowledge of your actions, on the evening of the fifth of August, attacked Malvina Gillie with intent to kill?"

Fenrir stared at him. His mouth opened slightly. He was suddenly aware that it was very dry. He licked his lips, to no avail. It was getting hard to breathe.

The old wizard was getting impatient. "Well?"

"I was attacked," said Fenrir, slowly, breaking his gaze away an instead staring at a spot near the man's feet, "by some sort of animal. When it jumped at me, I – it was self-defence." _Don't think about Malvina, don't think about Malvina._

"The animal by which you were attacked was, I believe, a werewolf?"

There was a loud silence. Fenrir could feel the court holding its breath.

"Yes," he said, "that's what I'm told."

There was a murmur among the stands. The old wizard at the front cleared his throat and continued, "And can you prove this?"

Fenrir said nothing, but he didn't need to, because at that point, Fraser stepped forward, introducing himself as, "Witness for the defence, Isaac Fraser," and beginning to spout something about Intrusive Tests and the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

"I see," said the old wizard, when Fraser had quite finished, red in the face and out of breath. "And, Mr Greyback, you claim that this… creature… _bit_ you?"

"Yes, I do," said Fenrir, "that's why I had to defend myself, you see, we didn't know, and it wasn't my fault—"

"The Wizengamot does not wish to imply this," said the old wizard. "But if your story is correct in every detail, we shall be forced to take into account the magical qualities of werewolf saliva and the nature of the disease… that is to say, we must assume that the curse has been passed."

"NO!" yelled Fenrir, struggling against the chains that held him, but they only pulled tighter. He would have liked nothing better than to rip the man's face off. "I'M NOT A WEREWOLF!"

There was renewed murmuring amongst the Wizengamot. The old wizard watched disapprovingly as Fenrir was forced to settle back down, chains rattling. "Very well," he said, when the noise had died down. "We shall vote. Those in favour of clearing the witness of all charges?"

Many of the Wizengamot raised their hands, but half-heartedly, as though they would rather see him sent to rot in Azkaban – as though he was indeed a werewolf! Fenrir scoffed inwardly at the idea. "And those in favour of conviction?" A couple of shadowy figures in the back of the room raised their hands.

After glancing around, the old wizard at the front declared, "Cleared of all charges!" before motioning with his wand to the chair holding Fenrir. The chains sprang open, and Fenrir got up, to receive a handshake and a lukewarm smile from Fraser. As he was lead from the courtroom, he could have sworn he heard the old wizard say, "Let's see if we can't get another one in before lunch."

Outside the courtroom, Fraser offered him words of congratulations. "Well done, lad. I told you, didn't I, stick to the story and you'll be fine. You could have done without losing your temper like that, but in the end I suppose they understood. It's a painful transition."

"What is?" Fenrir asked offhandedly, not looking at Fraser and wondering when he would be allowed to go.

"The transition from human to werewolf," said Fraser. "Don't worry, though. We'll try to make it as comfortable for you as possible."

"Wait, hold on a minute," said Fenrir. "Do you mean to say you believe the court? That you think I've been cursed?" He had to laugh at that point.

"I would say it's very likely, yes," said Fraser, pushing his glasses further up his nose as they slipped down. "I've had to work with many people over the years in similar situations to yours. All of them had been infected, but I assure you all have been able to lead perfectly normal human lives."

Fenrir frowned, and shook his head. "I'm not like them, though," he said, after thinking for a minute. "Yes, I'll be able to live a perfectly normal human life, but only because I'm a perfectly normal human. The thing that attacked me wasn't even all the way transformed, and anyway, it wasn't even a werewolf… I don't know… it must have been some sort of curse that made her _look_ like a werewolf." That was the theory of his that, he had decided, made the most sense. "I don't need you telling me this right now. I just need to get home and get back to normal. I need to forget about what happened." _Most of all, I need to make my peace with Malvina's memory._ "Will you let me do that, please?"

Fraser waited for him to stop talking, then said in measured tones, "I understand that it must be hard for you to take in. It always is. But ignoring this will only lead to more trauma. Of course, you won't be sure of the curse until the full moon has passed, but we strongly recommend taking precautions – I mean to say, restraining yourself for the evening." Fenrir opened his mouth, but Fraser kept talking. "If the full moon passes and you have not transformed, there will be no need to register yourself with the Werewolf Registry."

"Register myself with the Werewolf Registry? _Register myself with the Werewolf Registry_? I'm not bloody registering myself with any Werewolf Registry!"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to, Mr Greyback, it's a legal requirement. It's to stop things like this happening."

"Well, it doesn't work, does it?" said Fenrir savagely.

"There would be a lot more attacks like the one you have had to suffer if not for the Registry," Fraser responded coolly. "In the meantime, please, let me give you these." He reached into his briefcase and lifted two shiny leaflets. One had a photograph on the front of a plump woman sitting at a desk, grinning with pointed teeth. The plaque on the desk read _Artemis Patenall, Werewolf Support Services_. Artemis Patenall seemed to be conversing with people outside of the picture – probably werewolves, thought Fenrir – and writing memos. The other leaflet bore the image of a huge animal rattling the bars of a cage. It was all fur and claws and slavering jaws – definitely a werewolf, thought Fenrir. The header of this leaflet read _WEREWOLF REGISTRY – DEPARTMENT FOR THE REGULATION AND CONTROL OF MAGICAL CREATURES – BEAST DIVISION_.

"What is this?" asked Fenrir indignantly.

"The leaflets will give you advice," said Fraser, "on what to do next. I also strongly suggest you begin attending our Support meetings. We hold them in a Muggle community hall every two weeks, and we serve biscuits. I'm sure you will find everyone to be very friendly and more than helpful—"

"And if I don't want to go?"

"We can't force you, but I suggest you do attend. It will help you come to terms with the condition."

"For the last time," said Fenrir, almost beginning to find it funny, "I don't have a condition."

"Here is the address." Fraser scribbled it onto a piece of parchment, ignoring him. "The next meeting is in three days' time, at seven o'clock in the evening. Please come. I'm sure it will be highly beneficial. Now, if you'll please excuse me, I have a meeting in fifteen minutes."

"Great," said Fenrir, pocketing the parchment, fully intending never to look at it again. "Okay. Can I go home now?"

"You can do whatever you like," said Fraser, and there was just a hint of sadness in his tone. "Just please take into account who you will be hurting if you don't accept our offer of help."

"Right," said Fenrir, "I'll think about that." Then he turned and left, not caring that he was being rude or that he hadn't even thanked Fraser for representing him, only wanting to get back to his warm little house with his pink carpet and forget about the last three disastrous weeks.

/

But arriving home was bittersweet. The house was tainted now. Previously it had been shimmering gold, everything Fenrir wanted, the start of a new era of his life. Now it seemed more like lead, a dull grey, its sparkle gone, and, walking around the place, Fenrir felt as though his stomach was filled with rocks. He didn't want to eat. He didn't want to move. He didn't want to see anyone. He was too worn out for that, too worn out to do anything but sleep, but in the absence of the potions he'd been consuming at St Mungo's, he wasn't able to. So he just lay on the sofa, facing the far wall, staring at nothing and wishing for something. The house was unbearably silent now. Far from being peaceful, it felt ominous. Not even his thoughts punctured the silence; he thought of nothing.

At least, he thought of nothing for the first twenty-four hours. Then a cold feeling crept over him. _Is this what my life is now?_ There was the silence, and that was everything. Was he destined to be alone? Was that the curse? He felt a sudden rush of anger, a hot rush that eliminated the cold, and he got to his feet and began pacing feverishly.

He'd been attacked. He had been attacked by a werewolf. Whatever Malvina was before didn't matter. It had been she who had attacked him, and she who had been killed, but it couldn't have been any other way. A strange feeling crept over Fenrir. _I hate her._Why had she put him through this? Why had she forced him into this position? Why had she been _so stupid_ as not to recognise a werewolf cub when she saw one? It was no-one's fault but hers, and Fenrir was glad she was dead. The girl he had known had been a lie. What she was was something different altogether: she was that monster that fed on society like a leech and ruined lives and acted on its own selfish impulses.

"That werewolf BITCH!" he cried suddenly, surprising even himself. He flung his fist at the wall, where it collided with the mirror, which shattered violently, spraying shards of glass over the floor and Fenrir's feet. His knuckles began bleeding spontaneously, oozing first little red droplets, then allowing scarlet rivers to flow. And Fenrir laughed. The pain was good; the pain meant something. It meant he was still in there somewhere. It meant he hadn't lost himself. Because that was what the curse meant. And he wasn't going to give in to it.

So he went into the kitchen, humming happily, and bandaged his fist with a tea towel. He was no werewolf, he was just an unlucky guy. He didn't feel guilty any more; he just felt relief. He was sure he'd been able to kill the werewolf before it had really had time to infect him. It didn't matter that it had been Malvina, and Malvina didn't matter any more, because she wasn't human. All that mattered to Fenrir was that _he_ was alive, and that _he_ was human. And it was with those happy thoughts in his head that he went into his bedroom for the first time since arriving home.

The carpet was still stained with blood, from both of the pair, but the body had been taken by the Ministry. The blood didn't bother Fenrir; he could easily clean it up, but he was a bit annoyed at the fact that the Ministry officials hadn't had the decency to do it for him. "_Scourgify_!" He'd just spent a week in hospital. _You'd think they would have shown a little concern._

He went to the window, and looked out at the scene below him. It was a grubby little garden, mostly composed of a grey tiled path, with overgrown grass and weeds everywhere. The weather was bright and sunny again, the first nice thing Fenrir had seen in a long while. He made a mental note to get the garden sorted out. It really would not do to have it looking like that, not when the house was so cosy. Yes, he'd visit Diagon Alley tomorrow, and buy some gardening supplies. He was planning this trip, and what flowers he'd grow, when he was hit in the face by the owl he did not see coming.

"Ow! What the hell–? What do you–?" He was stumbled backwards, clutching his face. The owl's talon had nicked the skin of his cheekbone. It sat on the windowsill, hooting a pathetic apology that sounded like a falling bomb. It was a large black owl, with white specks and huge round black eyes. Fenrir stared at it with the one eye that wasn't covered by his tea towel-bandaged hand. "What do you want?"

The owl stuck out its leg. Fenrir snatched a scroll of parchment from it, and it apparently took this as an invitation, because it hopped inside and went to perch on top of his wardrobe. Fenrir cast it a last one-eyed glare before unravelling the parchment.

_Fenrir,_

_You probably know that I've gotten a job at the Ministry. As such, I've heard on the grapevine that you recently had a less-than-pleasant encounter with a werewolf named Gillie. No, don't ask me how I know. Let's just say when you know the right people, it's not difficult to garner information. (You should remember that. Get in with the right crowd, Fenrir, otherwise you'll be stuck in that Muggle dung hole forever.)_

_I'm writing to congratulate you on besting the werewolf. There's not a lot of people who would be able to take on a fully-grown beast like that – or so I'm told. My position at the Ministry involves a lot of dealing with dangerous magical creatures, but so far I haven't come across a werewolf. You'll have to tell me how you did it, I'm eager to hear._

_Anyway, aside from my work at the Ministry, I don't have a lot to write about myself. The job takes up most of my time, so you really ought to appreciate the time I have taken to compose this letter._

_I hope you're well._

_Walden_

Fenrir screwed his face up and reread the letter. Walden was a close friend of his, so why did the letter seem so oddly formal? Perhaps it was his new 'position at the Ministry'. Maybe he was embracing the professional life. Fenrir chuckled. Walden had always had a natural affinity for animals; they seemed to trust him. _Hang on a minute._ There was something strange about that last line. 'I hope you're well.' It didn't seem appropriate somehow. Fenrir had been attacked, spent a week in hospital and had to clear his own blood off the carpet and Walden _hoped he was well_. It didn't seem right. There was something fishy about the whole letter, come to think of it… Walden didn't seem to actually care if he was well or not, he only seemed to care about – Fenrir checked the letter again – killing werewolves. Surely he wasn't planning on becoming a werewolf hunter? Fenrir snorted. Walden was strong, certainly, and a powerful wizard, but something about the letter's phrasing made Fenrir wonder if he was right in assuming that killing the werewolf wouldn't have any consequences. It seemed too clean, too clear-cut.

And it was that one last line, 'I hope you're well', that made Fenrir reach into the pocket of his robes and pull out the piece of parchment from earlier. It read _12 Mulgrave Road, Saturday, 7 PM_. Fenrir looked at it and frowned. He didn't need to be there, but all the same… He didn't have anything better to do…

And so, Fenrir Greyback found himself standing outside a Muggle community centre in black wizarding robes, waiting for a werewolf support group to commence, staring at the printed-off poster in the window which claimed it was an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, and wondering how he had found himself in that position.


	3. Night of the Wolf

**Chapter Three**

**Night of the Wolf**

The hall was dull, dingy, and had a greyish tinge about it. It was almost silent, but Fenrir could hear the faint, far-off sounds of a conversation being held in a room down the corridor. Chairs were shifting about, and they echoed oddly in the emptiness. Fenrir walked slowly towards the door from which the noise was emitting. He was late for the meeting. He paused, and stood outside, staring at the Overeaters Anonymous poster. What he knew made his skin crawl. Behind that door was a pack of werewolves, and Fenrir's heart was beating so fast he was sure they'd be able to hear it. It felt as though it were about to leap up his throat. His mouth was dry. He licked his lips in a futile attempt to moisten them. _I shouldn't have come._

He was about to turn away when the door he was staring at opened. Fraser was standing there, having made a brave attempt at dressing like a Muggle, in pinstripe trousers and a tartan shirt. "Mr Greyback!" he said. "It's good to see you you've decided to join us."

"I—how did you know I was here?" croaked Fenrir.

"We saw you through the window," said Fraser, gesturing to a window in the wall Fenrir hadn't realised was there because it had been so plastered with notifications for upcoming events in the local area (many of which, he noticed, had happened last October).

"Oh…"

"Yes. Now, please, do come in." Fraser stood back and held the door open further. Now Fenrir could see that there was a long table in the middle of the hall, at which sat a number of ordinary-looking Muggle-clothed witches and wizards, all of whom were staring at Fenrir curiously. One of them had only one eye, the other lost to (Fenrir assumed) whatever had given her the four red gashes across her face. One of them he recognised: it was Artemis Patenall, the woman from the leaflet. Fenrir felt the muscles in his face tense as he tried to force them into a smile.

"Go on then, take a seat," said Fraser, shutting the door moving across to the table where he took his own seat, next to Artemis Patenall, who was at the head.

Fenrir followed cautiously, pulling the nearest chair from under the table as carefully as possible, though his hands were trembling. He was trying not to make a noise, hoping they'd look away and forget he was there, and go back to what they'd been talking about before… because he wanted to hear, he wanted to know what they thought was in store for him… but he didn't want to participate. That would mean admitting something, something he did not want to admit. But the chair squeaked and creaked and the entire table still sat with their eyes focused on him as he sank into it. He wished he would keep sinking, that it would absorb him, but no such luck.

"Well, it's nice to have you here," said Artemis Patenall, drawing a paper file from a pile in front of her and opening it. "Isaac said you might be coming. Fenrir, isn't it?" He grunted. He wasn't sure if he wanted the werewolf calling him by his first name. "I'm Artemis. I work at the Ministry of Magic as head of the Werewolf Support Services office."

"I—I know," said Fenrir, because he felt he should say something. She raised her eyebrows curiously, and Fenrir felt the tips of his ears go red. "I—I saw the leaflets."

"Oh! Well, then, you'll know all about the group," she said with a big smile, showing him her pointed teeth. He made a noise that was supposed to be affirmative, but came out as a frightened twitter. "Oh, there's no need to be nervous," she said. "We're all very friendly here. Would you like a biscuit? Which kind do you prefer? Or a sandwich?"

Fenrir looked to the middle of the table and saw several trays, one laden with biscuits, another with sandwiches, and another with tea things and pumpkin juice. He nodded, his jaw tight – he wouldn't have to talk when he was chewing. "Sa—sandwich, please."

Artemis lifted the tray with a flick of her wand, and it came to rest in front of Fenrir, who picked up a small, triangular ham and cheese sandwich and stuffed it in his mouth, purely with the intention of excluding himself from the conversation. However, he realised as he tasted it just how hungry he was. He hadn't eaten properly in three days, not since he was released from hospital; he'd had only a couple of leftover sausages and cornflakes. The sandwiches were not haute cuisine, but once Fenrir began to eat them he couldn't stop. He stuffed one after another into his mouth, and forgot that he was in public, and that everyone was watching him.

Between sandwiches, he heard Fraser clear his throat. "Yes, well, I think we should all get to know Fenrir a little better, introduce ourselves, and talk about the upcoming full moon."

Fenrir stopped eating. Crumbs had liberally sprinkled themselves around his mouth. He stared at Fraser, then blinked. _Are they going to talk about _me _this whole meeting?_ If he'd known that, he wouldn't have come.

"Well, I'll start," said Fraser, and everyone around the table shifted into a more comfortable position in their seats, listening intently. "As you know, my name is Isaac Fraser. I would ask you to please call me Isaac, there's no need for formalities here." Fenrir tried to swallow, wondering if it would be rude to ask for the pumpkin juice to ease his thirst. He wasn't sure he would be able to concentrate with such a dry mouth. "I work, again, as you know, for the Werewolf Support Services, helping to ensure things run smoothly between werewolves and the rest of the wizarding community where the law is concerned. I have been a werewolf for fifteen years. In my spare time I enjoy ten-pin bowling."

Fenrir nodded silently. Artemis Patenall then took it upon herself to provide Fenrir with another introduction, in which she stated she had been a werewolf since she was twenty-three, enjoyed watching Quidditch, and saw Isaac at work occasionally. Then the others did the same, each greeting Fenrir cautiously and telling him their life stories. He listened intently, trying not to think about the cold flagon of pumpkin juice sitting in the middle of the table. He gathered the others' names were Claud, Iris, Florence and Mantus, and they'd all been werewolves for at least a year, and most of them more than six. But it wasn't as helpful as Fenrir had hoped: not one of them was talking about how to fix it. When they fell silent, they all looked at him, as though expecting him to say something. So he cleared his throat and said, "What if you don't… want to be a… werewolf?"

There was an awkward silence.

"Well, you… can't not be one," said Artemis eventually. "There isn't a 'cure'."

Fenrir blinked at her. "But – but there's only six of you," he said. "There can't be only six werewolves in London."

"Only six who attend the support group," Fraser said, a hint of regret in his voice. "The others, I fear, struggle greatly. We try to prevent attacks as often as possible. That it the purpose of the Registry."

Fenrir sat with his mouth open, eyes not moving from Fraser. "But—but—but—"

"I'm afraid," said Fraser, with a sigh, "there are no 'buts'. We are in this for life."

"But—"

"There's no 'buts'," said one of the werewolves, who had identified himself as Mantus. He had a mane of red hair and jagged yellow teeth. "Yer one of us now." He laughed, and Fenrir hated it. It was a cruel laugh, the sort of laugh a wolf would have if it were given human form, the sort of laugh that conjured up images of black dogs stealing children in the dead of night, and cattle that had been ripped apart.

"Now, Fenrir," said Artemis, in a barely-concealed attempt to distract him from Mantus, "you must have a lot of questions."

Fenrir looked at her, unable to articulate his thoughts. He had too many questions. So he settled on asking, "Can I have the pumpkin juice, please?"

He was passed the flagon and a mug. He filled the mug and drank from it deeply, twice, then looked back up, to see Artemis and Fraser looking at him concernedly. He didn't want their concern. He was only there _just in case_.

"Why do you hold your meetings in a Muggle community hall?" he asked, because he was avoiding the real, big question. Fraser sat up slightly straighter, with an air that said _Now we're getting somewhere._

"We feel it is best to hold our meetings away from the rest of the wizarding community," he said. "We feel it will mean less trouble for us if our operations are outside the wizarding world. You know the resentment most wizards hold for us."

Fenrir did; he knew it all too well. And with good reason, too. _Look what you've done to me!_

"What—_If_ I am a werewolf," he began, then paused, waiting for someone to contradict him, but no-one did. They just looked at him, listening closely. "If I am a werewolf," he said again, in a quieter voice, "what should I do?"

He knew he sounded foolish to their ears. They were experienced werewolves, and he should have read the leaflets, but he'd misplaced them. And he needed to hear the advice from another living person, anyway.

"The full moon is approaching in two weeks, on the third of September," said Fraser. "We will hold a meeting two days later, during which you will be able to discuss with us your experiences at that time."_Fat chance._ "On the evening of the third of September, I suggest you find a safe place to go. No, not your own house. A cellar, or an unused building. Somewhere away from people. You cannot run the risk of escaping. If need be, I can assist you in finding an appropriate—"

"I know where I can go," said Fenrir, thinking of the uninhabited Muggle houses on his road. _Break in through a window and seal it by magic._

"You've already planned? Where?" asked Fraser.

Fenrir scowled and told him. He didn't want the werewolf interfering in his personal life, not when he was already forcing him to creep around old houses at night.

Fraser said he thought that would be ideal, as long as he was sure he would be secure and as far away from people as possible. He also advised making sure his job had flexible holidays – "to pay for the meat," he said. He told Fenrir it was wise for one to bring a few big steaks with them when about to transform, as it would lesson the after-effects of the transformation. Fenrir had to admit at that point, because he wasn't sure how it would affect him, that he had been living off his parents' money until he was able to fill a position at the Ministry (though they were pure-blooded and therefore had the accumulated wealth of centuries, Fenrir's father did not like spending even a Knut – a fact which had denied Fenrir a racing broom in his schooldays. Still, the upside, as he saw it, was that one day all that gold would be his very own). Fraser frowned.

"You'd best start looking for a proper job now, boy," he said. "Come the full moon you might find job opportunities a bit scarce."

Fenrir had lost the will to tell him he was wrong. Instead, he gave him dirty glares when he looked away from him, down the table. The others pitched in with the discussion as well, advising potions that would help with itchy skin and favourite varieties of steak. So, at the end of the hour, Fenrir was pretty confident that he knew what to expect come the third of September, bar one infinitesimal, irrelevant detail…

After everyone else had gone, with a polite goodbye, Fraser and Fenrir were left alone together once again. Fraser was sorting paperwork into a briefcase. Fenrir stood awkwardly by his chair, wondering how to address the issue. He cleared his throat. Fraser looked up, apparently startled that anyone was still there.

"Ah! Fenrir. Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I…" He cleared his throat again, and didn't meet Fraser's eyes. "I have one more question," he mumbled.

"Yes?"

"Does—does it hurt?" asked Fenrir in a whisper. Fraser looked at him appraisingly, with something in his eyes that looked horribly like pity. He shut his briefcase with a snap.

"You'll get used to it," he said, and Disapparated.

Fenrir stared at the spot where he had been, and then Disapparated too, feeling thouroughly miserable.

/

Three weeks passed, and Fenrir had found himself a job at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Florean Fortescue had been welcoming and eager to employ someone. He told Fenrir he'd arrived at just the right time; he was looking for someone to help him out, as his assistant for the summer had just left. Fenrir had shuffled awkwardly and had not told him that he was only looking for some money before he got a job at the Ministry.

He rather fancied working in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. He had a knack for Quidditch. He knew Fraser and the others thought the odds were against him, but Fenrir believed that with enough perseverance he'd be able to get whatever he wanted. He'd still taken the job at Fortescue's, though, because he didn't want to explain to his parents why he was asking for extra money.

Fortescue was an affable man who was very willing to teach Fenrir all about the different kinds of ice cream he served, and assured him that he could have as much of it as he wanted when he was on his break. The job wasn't demanding. Fenrir stood behind a counter, wearing a stupid-looking apron and commanding scoops of ice cream into bowls when people asked. It wasn't stimulating, but he was glad he'd found a job at last, as he at least had something to do all day (his letters enquiring about placements at the Ministry had come back saying they weren't looking for someone at the moment).

Upon arriving home from the support meeting, Fenrir had scribbled a note back to Walden, telling him that the attack was just a matter of chance and he didn't want to talk about it. Walden didn't seem to have the slightest indication that it may have been a traumatic experience for him, but at least he didn't pester Fenrir with questions. So far, he hadn't replied.

/

As the sun began to dip below the horizon on the evening of the third of September, Fenrir made his way down the road to the furthest house he was sure was empty. It was at the end of the estate, its garden wildly overgrown, the windows boarded up with wood and corrugated iron. Fenrir walked around to the back, taking glances over his shoulder every few steps to make sure no Muggles were watching. It wouldn't do for them to think he was breaking in, not at all.

He removed the wooden slab covering the window with his wand and hoisted one leg over the sill, hauling himself in. The floorboards were completely bare aside from the layer of dust and bits of debris that had fallen from the upper floor. The only light came from the window Fenrir had just revealed. Upon boarding it up again, he was left in darkness. "_Lumos_!" he whispered. He felt he should be whispering, though he didn't know why. Perhaps it was the creepy vibe the house gave off – he wouldn't have been surprised if he met a ghost.

But the house was silent. It seemed like another world in here. As he cast the thin beam of his wand around, he could see spiders scuttling from their homes, angry at being disturbed, and the sounds from outside – traffic, children and car alarms – didn't seem to exist any more. An inky blackness was all that there was, darker, even, than the coming night, for it at least had the full moon to shed light on it.

Fenrir took a seat on the bottom stair. It creaked loudly, in an unpleasant and uninviting sort of way, making him flinch. He drew his knees up to his chin, sticking his wand out in front. How long was he supposed to wait, he wondered, before he would know it was safe to return? He leant his head against the wall. It seemed to crumble slightly, the wallpaper flaking, sprinkles of plaster falling onto his ear. Fenrir brushed it off, and the light from his wand wavered unpleasantly. Sitting still again, he began to drift into a half-sleeping state. It was so still, so quiet…

And then he felt it. Someone had just plunged a dagger through his stomach, or as good as. It was as though his skin was blistering, and fire coursed through his veins. He gasped, too shocked to scream, and dropped his wand as his hands began to shake uncontrollably. The light blinked out immediately, and Fenrir could only feel what happened next. He fell off the step, writhing in the darkness, trying desperately to catch a breath that would allow him to scream. He didn't see how his hands twisted into misshapen paws and claws. He didn't see the bottom of his spine push its way through his skin. He didn't see his nose lengthening into a snout filled with fangs. No; he couldn't see what he had become, and he couldn't scream. He could only whimper, feeling a half-formed sob rise up in throat, which, as the pain ended and he got to his feet again, became a howl, which broke the silence the house had sat in for fifteen years and meant that the night of the wolf had begun.

/

The next day he jerked awake, trying to remember what had happened. His robes and skin were torn; he was covered in blood. A thin shaft of light came in from just above one of the windows. A glance around told him immediately what he had been hoping against hope not to be true: he was a werewolf, whether he liked it or not.

Gashes in the wallpaper had been left where the claws had dug in. The paper peeled, left flapping helplessly. Through the doorway, Fenrir could see a large amount of debris in the kitchen. The roof had fallen through. The baluster of the staircase had been ripped apart. Bits of it, shards of wood, were strewn across the floor. Fenrir could taste blood and sawdust in his mouth.

He lay still for a few moments, curled into the foetal position. Then his whole body began to shake as he sobbed, dry, shallow sobs that hurt his throat, which already felt as though it had been rubbed raw. He cried for his mother, and stared at his hands. Around his nails, blood had crusted, a reminder of the claws that had forced themselves out the night before. Buried under the nails was all the kinds of dirt the house held, and every body and muscle in his body ached.

Although his sobs eventually faded, he sat on, just staring, trying to think of what he was to do. Nothing, _nothing_, he'd ever learnt could have prepared him for this. His stomach gave a twinge. He was hungry, and he felt faint. He hadn't done what he'd been told. He hadn't brought meat with him, or anything else. He'd panicked.

_There's food at home_, he thought vaguely. _I can get cleaned up there._ So he screwed up all the strength he could, again and again, scrabbled for his wand (mercifully intact under some debris) and Apparated into his own back garden.

It was as overgrown as he had left it, perhaps moreso, and the dawn was just beginning to break. It was a yellow, blinding sort of light – the usual. Fenrir stared at the sun's near-blinding rays for a moment before dropping his eyes. How could things be so normal, when he'd just—

He went inside, in a sort of trance-like state, and went abut his normal morning duties as he had for the past week. _Clean. Breakfast. Dress._ He even set out for work. He was completely numb. Florean Fortescue asked him what was wrong. Fenrir just stared at him with a glassy expression, not even realising he was expected to think up a lie. Fortescue didn't ask after that. He assumed someone had died, and didn't want to press the subject. Fenrir carried out the work mechanically, and when he returned home that night, he got into bed fully clothed and slept right through to the morning. It was a heavy, dreamless sleep, but he could have sworn he heard people whispering to him from the darkness, and it made his skin crawl.

/

As it turned out, the support group became his saviour. He couldn't even turn to drink. He couldn't touch Firewhiskey any more, not after… The second night after the transformation was the worst. All the feelings he should have had the previous night – rage, depression, violation – returned twofold, and he was paralysed with them. He sat hunched up on the floor of his own bedroom, sure he was going insane. But when evening arrived, and he somehow managed to pluck from his tangled thoughts the idea that there was somewhere he needed to be, he found just enough will to get to the community centre, bedraggled and miserable, but willing to accept their offer of help.

They understood what he was going through. It was a relief, somehow, just to talk about it. It felt as though his feelings about the whole situation had been built up behind a solid brick wall, which, during his second group meeting, came crashing down. He wanted to get it out. He wanted to get rid of it. And they allowed him to do that. They allowed him to sit at their table and rant about it, and scream, and yell swearwords and dig grooves into the desk with his fingernails. And then they made him a cup of tea.

And they continued making him cups of tea, and they continued to support him. Fenrir got to know them, and he even let them get to know him. He learned that Artemis, although an avid Quidditch fan, would not consider herself to be a good player. Iris enjoyed gardening; how funny, she'd laugh, it was almost as though her parents had known when they named her. No-one was to ask Florence how she'd lost her eye. It was sort of a taboo, as was Puddlemere United (a sensitive subject for Artemis).

Florence had skills when it came to looking after magical creatures, having mostly failed at school but managed to gain an O in Care of Magical Creatures. Both she and Iris assisted Fenrir with brightening up his garden, bringing interesting plants and creatures into it.

Claud was willing to help, too, but he didn't talk to Fenrir much at first. He was shyer than the others, which Fenrir was ashamed to admit he had at first taken for haughtiness. He had big brown eyes and chocolate-coloured skin, and the sort of good looks that made Fenrir feel inadequate. But during their various outings (the group sometimes left the community centre in order to pursue activities elsewhere; three-a-side Quidditch and steak dinners being favourites) they formed a bond, sharing a mutual interest in the art of potion-making.

His relationship with Mantus, however, was rocky at best. Mantus, or Manny, as he preferred to be known, was somewhat of an enigma to Fenrir. He was proud of being a werewolf, and seemed to think it was a gift that should be available through the Ministry to anyone wishing to pursue an 'alternative lifestyle'. Fenrir doubted his way of thinking very much. Still, Manny was friendly towards him, and would on occasion bake sweet treats for the group – all of which turned out to be delicious (They particularly appreciated his baking for the Christmas party).

The Ministry had sent him a letter a week after his first transformation, asking for his registration. They also included heavy parchment calendar with the dates of each full moon cleared marked. Fraser told him that his department had spent a long while trying to convince the Head of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that the calendar was necessary; apparently, they had thought it was an expensive and lavish gift.

"We managed to assure them that it was for everyone's safety in the end," sighed Fraser.

Fraser had helped him fill out the paperwork. Fenrir was apprehensive, but as he already had a good job, Fraser said, Fortescue wouldn't ask questions. Fortescue seemed worried about Fenrir's deteriorating appearance – bags under his eyes, tiny scars, a split lip, and, most embarrassingly, hair growing in his ears. Fenrir was forced to trim his fingernails daily; he didn't know they could grow so fast. But Fortescue _didn't_ ask questions, he just offered Fenrir chocolate sundaes with a smile and made sure he was comfortable.

His next two transformations were, although not easy, manageable. He took the day after off from work. He hoped that Fortescue hadn't become suspicious; if he had, he hadn't shown any sign of it. Then Fenrir would make his way to the abandoned house, and seal himself in after storing his robes and wand in a cupboard. There he would make the change, which, although very painful, wasn't as traumatic and upsetting as it had been the first month. Knowing that his friends were going through it too gave him reassurance, and he brought several steaks with him, which eased the hunger.

Although covered in self-inflicted scars and growing very hairy (incidentally, his beard was coming along nicely), Fenrir had begun to feel at peace. Yes, he still felt guilty, but his friends had helped them. They had shown him their way of life, and he understood it now. It was a perfectly manageable condition. He had no idea why it was seen as the curse it was made out to be. Being a werewolf didn't make you a monster – it was just ignorance that made it seem that way.

In some ways – and he felt enormously guilty for thinking this – he pitied the rest of the wizarding world. They didn't understand that the prejudice they had was nothing more than an old-fashioned stereotype. They would never be given the chance, he thought, as he looked around his group of friends, to experience something like this, to get to know these people for who they truly were. Because they were people after all, not animals. They each had their own personal opinions (particularly where Quidditch was concerned, but none more strongly than Artemis) – and Manny, for instance, enjoyed embroidery. Florence was allergic to cats.

But Fenrir had a nagging feeling that no-one who knew they were werewolves would ever care about something so trivial as that. And no-one, Florence had told him, who'd known her beforehand, had wanted to know her after she became a werewolf. That, to Fenrir, was unacceptable. Uncomfortably, he brought it up, knowing it was likely to be a sore subject.

He was right. The group fell silent.

"Well…" said Iris eventually, "becoming a werewolf is sort of like the start of a new era in your life."

"'Oo cares about what everyone else thinks?" scowled Manny. "If they don't like it there's no point wastin' yer time on 'em."

"But shouldn't we be trying to change their way of thinking?" asked Fenrir. "Surely things would get better if we could publicise groups like this, make people understand we suffer too?"

Artemis gave him a small, sad smile. "I think if we publicise, we'd end up in more trouble than we are now. People don't like having their beliefs challenged, Fenrir. Look how difficult it was for you."

"Yes, but I… I _understand_ now."

"But you had to _become_ one of us," said Artemis. "And you wouldn't… you wouldn't want to have to put someone else through that."

"No," said Fenrir. He frowned. Of course he wouldn't. The whole reason lycanthropy wasn't a problem was because you didn't have to hurt anyone, you didn't have to lose your humanity that way. Even Mantus knew that. He knew it deep down.

Although he didn't say any more about it in the group meetings, when Fenrir was at home, relaxing after work, by the fire, with a mug of hot chocolate, he would take a scrap of parchment and a quill (his new one, it was swan feather and he'd bought it with his very own wages) and he would plan. He would plan for a new sub-department of the Being Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Possibly, he decided, as he feverishly scribbled notes, it would be tied to the Werewolf Support Services – he wasn't sure how the laws worked, but he was sure it would be appropriate – and it would work for increasing awareness of the werewolf condition, and banning discrimination based on lycanthropy. It would be called, he decided, the Werewolf Liaison Office, and through it human wizards and werewolves would be able to communicate and work together. He would not make the mistake of assuming that they were the same species. An office in charge of promoting understanding was just what the werewolves needed.

And there was no point in trying to hide it. He was registered and the list was freely available to anyone. Why should werewolves have to conceal themselves and live a lie? Admitting it was the first step to acceptance, so Fenrir decided, weeks after having been 'infected', that he needed to tell people. He would tell the most important people in his life. _Yes_, he decided one snowy night in December, _I'm not going to lie to anyone_. He had to tell people – not everyone, just the people who needed to know. The people who mattered most. He wasn't going to let a bigoted opinion like this force him to live the rest of his life as a lie, in hiding.

He was going to tell his parents.

And he stiffened his resolve, and his determination to straighten things out, and set off for his parents' Christmas party with a large box of Chocolate Frogs. _Just to soften the blow a little._


	4. Cry Wolf

**Chapter Four**

**Cry Wolf**

He Apparated to the bottom of a hill in semi-darkness, twenty feet south of where he'd meant to arrive. He found himself in a blackberry bush. It was covered in the snow which lay thick on the ground, and was of course dead, but the brambles ensnared his ankle, ripping his robes and tearing his skin. He hissed and kicked and swore silently in an attempt to escape. Ultimately, he was successful, but the thorns scraped his skin deep enough to draw blood. He scowled down at the cut, and, after mending it, pointed his wand at the blackberry bush and blasted it to smithereens.

Satisfied, he set off for his parents' house. It was at the top of the hill, a crooked building visible in the falling night by the soft orange glow emanating from the windows. It was the image of Fenrir's childhood Christmases, perfectly preserved – a snow-topped cottage whose windows flickered with firelight, the scent of cinnamon and cocoa wafting through the door as Fenrir's mother opened it, and with a gasp of joy, threw her arms around his neck.

"Fenrir, darling!" She lifted her head and planted a warm kiss on his cold cheek, and he shivered as the warmth of the house floated onto the doorstep. His nose tingled.

"Hello, Mum. How have you been?"

"Fine, just fine, but come _in_, dear, you must be _freezing_ standing out there!" She took hold of his hand and pulled him into the hallway, shutting the door and commenting on how cold his skin was.

"I'm alright, really," said Fenrir, a bit embarrassed at being fussed over like this again, but enjoying it all the same.

"You need a good, big mug of hot chocolate," his mother said. "Your father's in the sitting room – sleeping, of course. You go in and see him while I get it for you." And after smiling at him again, she turned and hurried down the hallway to the kitchen. He looked after her fondly, a smile forming on his face. His life had changed do drastically in the last few months it seemed he'd forgotten what it was like to be with family.

Agnes Greyback was a small, thin woman, who now barely came up to Fenrir's shoulder. She had fine blonde hair, peppered with grey, and a long nose which people often said Fenrir shared (though he couldn't see it himself). Fenrir adored her, though she hadn't spoiled him. His father hadn't permitted her to, and his father's word was law in that house.

Fenrir went to the sitting room. It looked just as he remembered it: two armchairs facing the fire, each with a footstool, a coffee-table between them. However, there was now the addition of a pine tree, decorated with sparkling baubles, the tip scraping the cottage's low ceiling. Assorted gifts littered the floor beneath it, wrapped and waiting.

Fenrir looked to one of the armchairs, and sure enough, there was his father, dozing. Although he bore a resemblance to his mother, Fenrir looked more like his father than he would have cared to admit. They had the same blue-grey eyes, the same cheekbones, the same heavy eyebrows and the same straight-backed stance. In fact, Fenrir sometimes worried that he would look just like his father when he was older: fatter, with grey hair and a bushy moustache.

Fenrir tiptoed into the room and placed his box of Chocolate Frogs under the tree, then stood up. "Father," he said.

"Eh?" His father grunted, awoke and shook his head. "Who'sat?"

"It's me. Fenrir." He walked forward, towards the fire, and sat in the armchair opposite.

"Fenrir? Is it?" His father leant forward, peering at Fenrir's face in the firelight. "So it is!" he spluttered. "My, boy, you've changed." He sounded only mildly surprised. At that moment Agnes came back, carrying a tray which held three steaming mugs and a bowl of gingerbread biscuits, which she set on the little coffee table between the two armchairs.

"Here you are, this'll warm you up. How are you, dear? We've only gotten two letters from you." Fenrir had written on two separate occasions, the first a letter which detailed his experiences with his new house. He mentioned briefly the fact he'd met a girl. The second had been after his first transformation. He hadn't mentioned his stint in hospital at all, or the fact that he now attended regular support meetings. He just wrote about his new job, and mentioned that he'd made new friends. He supposed he should have written more, but what with everything, the thought honestly hadn't entered his mind.

"Thank you. I'm doing good, yeah." He nodded, and picked up the hot chocolate, which seared his trembling hands. He didn't want to go too in-depth about how exactly he was doing, not yet; he wanted to ease into it, wait until everyone was well-fed and had had a couple of drinks before breaking the news.

"He looks different," grunted his father, taking his own mug and a piece of gingerbread, and gesturing at Fenrir before tucking in. Fenrir raised his eyebrows at him.

"Of course he does, he's all grown up now. Mind you…" His mother gave him a doubtful look. "Your hair _is_ a bit long, dear."

Fenrir scratched the back of his head self-consciously. He supposed he should have trimmed it before setting out, but he hadn't realised it had grown so much. It was almost down to his shoulders now, curling wildly in all directions. Still, he'd remembered to shave his beard. He was wearing his best robes too; he'd dressed up especially, just to prove that he still could.

"Wait a minute, are you alright?" asked his mother suddenly, moving forward and taking hold of his chin, peering at his lower lip, which bore a dark vertical slit from being split so much recently. Her eyes flickered to the scar on his cheekbone, from the meeting months ago with Walden's owl, and then to a newer cut, just beginning to heal, on his jaw, from one of his transformations. "How did you get those, Fenrir? What happened?"

"I, um…" He shrank back, avoiding her gaze. He tried to chuckle. "I had an… incident… with an owl. It, um, smacked me in the face when I was standing at the window. Didn't see me there, I suppose. Useless animal." He gave a short laugh.

"Hm." He could tell she didn't believe him. Although she moved back to sit on a footstool, she still watched him warily, with great concern.

"So, erm, when's the party starting? When will everyone get here?" Fenrir asked in a barely concealed attempt to change the subject. His mother looked puzzled for a moment before a look of realisation dawned on her face.

"Your aunt Ida wasn't able to come. Your cousin's ill, with Dragon Pox, poor thing, and Hattie and Francis are fighting _again_ so they've decided not to come. I wrote to Xavier and told him that none of the others were able to make it but he was still very welcome for dinner if he wanted, but you know what he's like, couldn't stand the thought of it..." And she went on like this, talking about the various family members and _just what she thought about them_, but Fenrir had stopped listening after the mention of Xavier. He was trying to think what he could possibly do now. His plan had been simple: enjoy the party, mix with the family (even the brat Eugene – he was good with kids), show his parents he was an absolute model member of society. Then, when his father had dismissed everyone in favour of sitting by the fire with a small glass of whiskey before he fell asleep, and everyone was content, he would ease into a short speech. But this put his whole plan out the window.

Fenrir became aware that his mother had stopped talking, and was looking at him for a response. "Er…" he said. "Is it possible that we could have our own party?"

His father snorted and mumbled something about _kids_ and _parties_ and _good-for-nothing slobs_.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," said Fenrir hastily, hoping his father wouldn't think he'd spent the last five months partying. "I just meant, seeing as it's Christmas, as a celebration, seeing as we're all here, together again."

"Of _course_ we can," said his mother, giving his father a dirty look. "You come into the kitchen, dear, and help me prepare the chicken, won't you? Loki," she said with disdain, "you can wait here. We'll call you when we're ready for you."

So Fenrir went with his mother into the kitchen, leaving his father behind to doze in front of the fire. They prepared a large, plump chicken, and stuffing, and onions, and carrots, and beetroots, and parsnips, and nut roast, and chocolate pudding, and trifle, and large amounts of other Christmassy foods. It was the same Christmas meal they'd been eating for the last eighteen years (or as long as Fenrir could remember, at least) and he had never been able to finish it. This year, however, as he prepared it and served it up, he was sure he'd be able to finish every last scrap on his plate. Maybe he'd even have room for seconds. Werewolves have large appetites.

/

After they were all fed, they sat in front of the fire, each with a glass of their preferred drink, looking into the flickering flames and feeling deliciously sleepy. It had been good to catch up, thought Fenrir, he'd missed his parents so much and he hadn't realised it. He was glad to be back, glad to be back… there was something he had to tell them, he thought dimly, over the smell of spiced apples and the delicious fumes from the kitchen. Something important… ah yes…

Fenrir sat up straighter in his chair, shifting around, trying to find a comfortable spot. His mother and father sat up too, apparently startled by the sudden movement.

"I've got something to say," said Fenrir, and he knew, as the words left his mouth, that this wouldn't be as easy as he thought. For one thing, his mouth had suddenly dried up completely, and his tongue was flapping around uselessly. For another, his heart seemed to have swollen to such a size that it was blocking his windpipe, making it almost impossible to breathe. And he'd completely forgotten what he was going to say. His entire speech had left him, just like that.

"What is it?" asked his mother, who was looking at his with a face so full of concern he wanted to tell her it was nothing, just to make the look go away. There must have been something about the way he'd said it. He knew she knew it wasn't good news.

"Out with it, boy," his father said, unimpressed with Fenrir's delay.

"Um…" He tried in vain to moisten his lips. "Er…"

"Have you got something to say or not?" demanded his father, crabby now he'd been disturbed.

"I _do_," Fenrir whispered, for that was all he could manage as he tried desperately to think of how he'd been planning to introduce the subject. "I… I… I told you I made some new friends?" he said, and his voice came out a yelp. His mother nodded, frowning, her eyebrows drawn tightly together. "Well, they… we… we're sort of all part of a group," he said. "And they're all very helpful, and supportive… It's a support group. I mean, not that I need… it's not like… Well. I've got a job now," he said hopefully, but his parents reacted only with silence and confusion. Fenrir cursed himself inwardly, and tried to resurrect the remainder of his speech. "My life is going very well at the moment. But something has happened to me. It's… something I think you should know about, because… because, well, it's a big part of my life, and… You might think it's rotten but I want you to have an open mind because I want to show you that it's not that bad, it's actually a good thing, really, I want you to bear that in mind. Please," he finished feebly. "I'm really happy now." His heart was pounding against his ribs. He tried to steady his erratic breathing, feeling on the verge of tears.

"You're happy, we're happy," said his mother slowly, "but what's happened to you?" Her eyes were so full of worry that Fenrir had to look away, and for the briefest moment he contemplated not telling them, making something else up, but he knew he couldn't. He took a deep breath, and looked from his mother to his father, and then looked away, to the floor, and began.

"Several months ago, I was in hospital for a short while, after I… after… being attacked. By an animal. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I didn't want to worry you." He was surprised at how calm his voice was; there was only the slightest hint of a tremor. "Thing is, after the attack, I… haven't been… quite the same. Sometimes I'm… I'm not myself." Silence. He took a sip of his wine, not daring to look up. "I was given something, like an infection… It doesn't change who I am. I just have something that I have to cope with now, and it's made me understand the world in an entirely different way. The people I've met… they're amazing. I want you to understand, too. I want you to be a part of it. Not in that sense; I just want you to _know_." They remained silent, still staring at him intently, looks of bewilderment on their faces. He took a deep breath, and a drink to steady his nerves.

"Once a month, I have to go through the… some might call it a curse, but I disagree. It's painful, yes, but it's been just as much of a blessing to me as it has a curse. I mean to say I… I change. I become… wild. But I don't harm anyone… I go away to do it." Still they didn't speak. They didn't understand yet. "Remember, this doesn't change who I am. It's just a condition – a manageable condition – that I have to live with."

He paused, and prepared himself. His parents were proud purebloods, he was sure he knew how they'd react… but he was hoping that he'd explained it well enough that they'd realise their love for him was stronger than any prejudice. "I don't want you to panic, and I don't want you to worry. I want you to remember that I'm your son. But, also, now, I'm… I'm a werewolf."

There was brief moment during which the entire household was caught in silence, letting it sink in. Then his mother gave a shocked gasp, and true to form, his father leapt to his feet, looming over Fenrir's armchair, casting an ominous shadow.

As a child, Fenrir, though he loved his father deeply, had also feared him, as all his friends who visited. There wasn't a child in the area who wasn't petrified of Loki Greyback. He was taller than Fenrir still, as wide as the armchair, the muscles he'd had in his youth still bulging in his arms despite the weight he'd gained. "You're _WHAT_?" he roared, as though daring Fenrir to say he'd made a mistake.

"Fenrir, that's not funny," said his mother's voice. It was trembling, and sounded very small and far away. "You mustn't joke about things like that."

"I'm… I'm not joking," said Fenrir in a small voice, and then something inside him rose up. He wasn't going to be treated like this. He wasn't going to have his parents tell him what he could or could not be. "I'm not joking," he said firmly, staring into his father's eyes. His father was seething. His entire body was rigid, frozen. Fenrir got to his feet, not intending it as a gesture of defiance. He just wanted them to know he wasn't ashamed. His father spluttered, his face turning red.

"Look," Fenrir said, "look at me. I'm not any different. I'm just me." He spread his arms, gesturing down at himself, showing them his best robes. But his father seemed to think the sudden movement of his arms meant an attack, for before Fenrir knew what was happening, he'd drawn his wand and was pointing it at Fenrir's chest. His mother screamed.

Fenrir frowned. He stared at the thin wooden rod, unable to comprehend it. He'd expected his parents to react badly, to demand an explanation, to shout and him and call him filthy names – but not to attack him. Slowly, he held his hands up. "I haven't changed any, I've—"

"Oh, you've changed," spat his father. "You've changed, you filthy little…" He didn't seem able to come up with a word that was bad enough. "Said so yourself. _You're not quite yourself any more._"

"I'm still your son!" pleaded Fenrir, not breaking eye contact, not even looking to the wall where his peripheral vision told him his mother stood in tears. "Please, I haven't—let me show you—"

"You're no son of mine," his father snarled, and his wand trembled, a gold spark shooting out of the end. Fenrir flinched, but the spark diffused immediately – it was just the wand's knee-jerk reaction to his father's anger. "Who do you think you _are_? How do you have the nerve to show your face here? After you've sullied this family's good name… with your filthy… _dog_ blood… How _dare_ you…" His face was turning very pale, a vein standing out on his forehead. His wand hand was trembling. Fenrir backed away, his calves bumping the armchair. He collapsed into it, his arms over his face – a pathetic attempt to shield himself from whatever curse his father would throw at him.

But the curse didn't come right away. Instead his father hissed, "Get out of my chair, dog," and his mother whimpered. Fenrir grabbed the arm of the chair and hoisted himself up, out of the reach of his father's wand, and not a moment too soon, for the tail end of his robe, along with the armchair, was suddenly hit by a flash of green fire, not unlike a bullet fired from a Muggle gun, that flew from his father's wand and left a smoking hole in the fabric. Fenrir fell to the floor in a heap; desperately, he crawled towards his mother, pleading with her for understanding, but his father's hoarse yells filled the room. "GET AWAY FROM HER!"

Another blast. It hit the top of the doorframe, which shattered, raining splinters of wood down on Fenrir, and it began to smoulder, ugly, black smoke rising from the broken wood. His mother cried out, but his father had already moved between her and Fenrir, surprisingly fast for a man of his bulk, blocking her from his line of vision. "Get out of my house," his father hissed, "and don't you dare come back. Don't you dare show your face around here again. Don't write, and don't try and make contact with her. If I see you again, I – will – kill – you." He said the last three words very slowly, as though he wanted to leave Fenrir in no doubt as to their meaning.

Fenrir whimpered. Tears stained his face, splintered wood clung to his hair. "But listen—" _Bang_! A smoking black hole in the opposite wall. Fenrir jerked away from it, towards the door. "If you just—" _Bang_! Another smoking hole; Fenrir didn't stop to see where. He was on his knees, on his feet, trying to make his way towards the front door. _Get out!_ the wolf in him cried. He wanted to stay and reason with his father, but he was too scared; the wolf inside was cowering. _Bang_!

"And tell your werewolf _friends_ what's going to happen if they come near me or my family," snarled Loki, as Fenrir stumbled onto the doorstep, the snow whipping him in the face. It had begun to take the form of a blizzard, and lay twice as thick on the ground as it had earlier that evening.

"I _am_ your family," he pleaded desperately. "Mother! Mother, please!"

Agnes stood behind her husband in the doorway, blocking the remaining light from the hall. Her face was stained with tears, which were running down her cheeks in streams; she hadn't bothered to wipe them away. And she opened her mouth to speak, but her husband roared over her, "YOU ARE NOT OUR SON! Get away, you vermin!" There was another blast from his wand – this one set the snow on fire, a green ball of flame, burning inches away from Fenrir's hand, and the door was slammed shut in his face.

He stared at the closed door in silence but for his harsh breathing. _Worse than I'd expected._ He kept repeating that to himself, over and over again. For the next few minutes, it became sort of a mantra, one that calmed his breathing and his heartbeat and allowed him to think clearly. He told himself that this was how anyone would react. He was not alone. He just needed to be calm, to go to his support group, and then, in a few weeks, to go back to his parents and speak to them again. That was what he'd do.

_But_, a small voice inside him said, _if you do go back, your father _will_kill you. And they won't want to know you. No-one will. You have to hide. You were stupid to tell anyone. You need to keep it a secret and get on with your human life as best you can._

But he squashed that voice, and told it to shut up, and ignored it, and did everything possible to pretend it had never spoken. He _wasn't_ going to be ashamed of this. He didn't need to be ashamed, it was_they_ who needed to be ashamed of themselves. Look at the way they'd treated him! Beyond feeling let down, he was furious. _What gives them the right to speak to me like that? Their own son!_

He turned from the door, furious, wanting suddenly to be as far away as possible. They disowned him? He disowned them. The snow churned around his feet. He left deep grooves along the path to the house, which would be covered, he knew, by the time the morning came. There would be no sign, then, that he had ever been there. He strode forward, a sick hatred welling up hot inside him. He walked over his own blood beside the brambles, which still stained the pure white snow. _Of course_, he thought bitterly. His blood was an abomination, a blot on anything pure.

The fallen snow crunched beneath him, and fresh falling flakes whipped him in the face as he stormed away, further and further, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. But they would be gone by the morning; he would be gone by the morning, leaving nothing but pure white snow, pure blood.

/

For a support group, they weren't all that supportive. They listened patiently, sure, and tried to offer advice, but none of them seemed to think he'd experienced any wrongdoing. They seemed to think this was what was to be expected.

"Your parents will contact you when they're ready," said Iris, but the tone of her voice said, _If they're ever ready, and I don't hold much hope for that._

"But I'm their _son_!" Fenrir raged. "They're my _parents_. They're supposed to take care of me! Does no-one else think this is wrong?"

But they shook their heads and looked away. They were embarrassed, and sure that he would calm down soon – Fenrir could see it written all over their faces. They were treating him like a badly-behaved dog – a dog that had taken food from the table, tried too hard to be human. This was the equivalent of a tap on the nose and a _baddog!_.

He scowled for the rest of the meeting, not speaking to anyone, and not even commenting on how delicious Manny's specially-made mince pies were, though he took three.

/

He was still seething when he went into work after his holiday. He stomped through the back door, kicking snow off his boots and trod it into the rug (which swallowed it with a long-suffering sigh).

"Fenrir, is that you?" asked Fortescue's voice from the front of the shop. Diagon Alley was less busy now than it had been in the run up to Christmas but what with the snowy weather, the Parlour still did a good business in Hot Ices (which were much like ice creams but had a pleasant warming effect), mince pies and hot chocolate.

"Of course it's me," snapped Fenrir, adding "dunderhead" under his breath and immediately regretting it. Fortescue was a good man, it made no sense getting angry with him. But Fenrir's surges of anger had become erratic after the incident with… _those people_. At all times, he felt unstable, like he was standing on the edge of something, about to teeter forwards and fall off. He never did, though, but he could feel the wolf growling inside him. It frightened him a bit. When he knew he was being irrationally angry – for instance, when he felt the need to have a shouting match with his hat-stand for tripping him up, or his bathroom mirror for looking at him the wrong way – he was able to talk himself into calm, but he was always worried he was on the verge of something much worse.

"How are you?" he asked, hoping to disguise the bitter tone of his earlier statement. He left the hall and came out into the shop front, lifting an apron off a hook and tying it around his waist as he did so.

"Very well, thank you," answered Fortescue in his usual, annoyingly cheerful manner. Fenrir smirked. Having Fortescue around was sure to brighten anyone's day. He was a stocky man with a bushy brown beard and a round stomach, and twinkling blue eyes, always ready to hand out free ice creams when someone looked like they were having a bad day.

"You must be the only one," said Fenrir, wiping his hands on a tea towel. "Have you seen the weather, Fortescue? It's like being assaulted by fairies. Very cold, wet fairies."

"A winter wonderland," said Fortescue, persistently jolly. Fenrir grinned.

"Excuse me," said a voice. Both Fenrir and Fortescue looked out towards the counter, where a woman stood, holding a young boy by the hand. He was chubby and sandy-haired, pulling away from her, trying to look at the selection of ice creams in the window. She was youngish, but tired-looking, her mousy brown hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and a package that looked like a toy broomstick slung over her shoulder. "A late Christmas present," she laughed, when she saw Fenrir staring at it. "They were sold out. And I promised him an ice cream, to make up for having to be trailed all around the shops."

Fenrir chuckled. "Poor little fella," he said, looking over the counter to find the little boy trying to look up. "Oh! Hello! What sort of ice cream would you like, then?" he asked. The little boy looked taken aback at being asked his own opinion.

"Choc—choc'late?" he asked uncertainly, looking up at his mother. She laughed.

"Go on, then."

Fenrir caught her eye, and chuckled, and scooped out a bowl of chocolate ice cream for the boy. "Anything for you?" he asked the woman.

"No, thanks," she replied. "I'm putting my New Year's resolution into practice from now. I have to watch my figure."

"Oh, no… Don't be silly." He handed the ice cream to the boy, who grinned at him. "Tell you what, I'll throw in an ice lolly too. You make sure and share it with Mum if she changes her mind," he said. The boy nodded and reached out his little hand eagerly. His mother laughed.

"Thank you… Fenrir," she said with a smile, reading the name on his badge.

"No problem," he grinned. "Have a nice day… Er… I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

She laughed again. It was a nice laugh, thought Fenrir. "Leona," she said. "Leona Lupin."

"Well, enjoy your ice lolly, Leona Lupin."

"I'm sure I will." Still smiling at him, she turned to find a table. The little boy was being much more co-operative now he had his ice cream. He was spooning it clumsily into his face, smearing it on his cheeks. Fenrir turned away, with a stupid smile on his face, to find Fortescue frowning at him. Fortescue never frowned.

"What's wrong?" asked Fenrir.

Fortescue gave him a doubtful look, before saying, "How are you, Fenrir?"

Fenrir frowned. "Fine," he said automatically. "Jolly good." He didn't know why he said 'jolly good', apart from the fact that his head was spinning from his chat with the woman. _She had the most beautiful smile._

"No, really," said Fortescue, "I mean _really_, how are you? Because you look awful."

"Oh, well, cheers," said Fenrir with a scowl, turning away and adjusting an advertisement in the window.

"Fenrir, I'm worried about you," said Fortescue in a low voice. "You look exhausted. Have you been injured? Where do all these cuts come from?"

"I'm just… clumsy," muttered Fenrir.

"No, you're not," said Fortescue. "I've been around you long enough to know that you're not. There's something going on, Fenrir, I'm worried. We can talk about it."

"I don't want to talk about it," said Fenrir through gritted teeth, faking a smile and turning towards the counter where the next customer stood, slightly awkwardly, as though aware he was intruding on something. He placed his order in a mumble, and after he'd left, Fenrir and Fortescue returned to arguing in hushed voices.

"Tell me what's wrong."

"There's nothing wrong."

"_Tell me_ what's wrong."

"There's _nothing_ wrong."

"Fenrir, you have to tell me."

"I don't have to tell you anything!" This came out louder than he'd expected; the whole Parlour fell quiet and turned to stare. He clenched his jaw, didn't say anything more until they'd gone back to their ice creams.

"Fenrir, if something is up with you and it's going to affect your work I have a right to know."

"It's not affecting my work."

"Well, alright, maybe not, but I'm concerned about you."

"Go and be concerned about someone else, you're wasting your time on me."

"Fenrir, I care about you."

"Yeah, well, you must be the only one who does."

"What do you mean? Of course I'm not—"

"I just got disowned by my parents, so there you go!" He was speaking loudly now, breathing hard, unaware that the conversation of the shop had fallen to a quiet murmur. People were staring, but trying not to look as though they were staring. Fenrir leant on the counter, bowing his head over the ice creams, the heat wafting up onto his face. "Merry Christmas, son!" He laughed. It sounded like a bark.

Fortescue's brow wrinkled. "Why would they do that? Oh, Fenrir, I'm sorry. If you want to talk about—"

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!" He pounded the counter with his fist. By now all the talk in the shop had ceased. "I'll tell you, Fortescue, and then you can shut up about it. I'm a bloody werewolf, alright?" He looked up into Fortescue's confused eyes, and a deathly hush fell over the shop. One man took his two small children by the hand and left. The rest remained frozen to their seats. "I'm a werewolf, and I can't – I don't – arrgh!" He launched himself forward hands outstretched, ready to grab Fortescue's face and rip it off. It was so _annoying_, so _understanding_…

Then he realised what he was doing. Fortescue stumbled backwards, and Fenrir gave a yell of horror. He bolted past Fortescue, and out into the street. Witches and wizards were milling past, but they had no _idea_, they didn't know what he was…

He ignored Fortescue's yells that followed him outside. "Fenrir! Come back!" His head swirling with anger and frustration, confusion and hatred, he Disapparated. He didn't know where he was thinking of; all he knew was that it was a field somewhere. When he arrived, it was barren, covered in a thick white blanket of undisturbed snow. He marched through it in fury, not knowing where he was going, not caring. He tore his apron off, and it fluttered to the ground, where it was to be covered with falling snow. _Snow covers everything._ He kept on walking, not caring that he still didn't see anything he recognised, not caring that his fingers and toes were numb, not even caring when night started to fall. Not until he saw the moon rise.

_Is it tonight?_ _It can't be tonight._ It was too soon. Frantically, he tried to count the days off on his frozen fingers. He'd lost track… It couldn't be tonight. Not tonight. _Please not tonight._

But it was. He realised, panicking, shivering. He tried to Disapparate, thinking of _home_, thinking of _his house_, but he doubled over as the pain hit his stomach.

It was tonight. Tonight the wolf ran free and cried to the full moon.


	5. Hairy Jack

**About the title:** Hairy Jack is a colloquial name for the Black Dog, which is a nocturnal apparition said to be associated with the Devil and an omen of death. In other words, the Muggle Grim! It may also interest you to know that in some places the local version is known as _Padfoot_.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five<strong>

**Hairy Jack**

He was curled into a warm ball. He woke up, stretched, and lay still for a moment, blissfully comfortable. Then he remembered what had had happened the previous night, and jerked fully awake with a horrible swooping sensation in his stomach.

The light was dim and grey, but two things were immediately obvious. First, he was in a cave. Second, in his sleeping position he had been holding something tight against his chest, something big, something warm, something bloody.

The blood covered him. It stained his skin, stained what was left of his robes. It was in his hair, matted and congealing. It was under his fingernails. It was in his mouth. He gagged and turned away from what he had been holding.

It was a man. At least, it had been a man. Or a woman. He couldn't tell. But whatever it had been, it wasn't any more. It was dead, that was for sure. Although its blood was still warm and wet, it was dead, and mutilated beyond any recognition. He stared at it, trembling.

_I didn't do this_, he told himself. _It was the wolf that did it. I'm not… I'm not the wolf._

He'd lost control. He hadn't made preparations. That was stupid. He should have locked himself up. He should have kept track of the time. _The wolf, the wolf, the wolf._ He kept saying it, over and over again. It became his mantra, as he stared down at the bloody mess in front of him. His harsh, ragged breathing became slower. He started to think.

_I didn't do it. I'm not the wolf._ But a little voice inside him said, _Yes, you are._ Trembling, he dug his fingernails into the earthen floor beneath him. His head pounded. He turned to vomit again.

How could he have been so stupid? What was he thinking? Of course this was his fault! He'd failed to remember the full moon was last night. One night! One night a month! And his only responsibility was to stay indoors! All the preparation, the hours spent talking with Fraser and the others, the calendar, the steaks… and he'd messed up anyway. In frustration, he clawed at his face, leaving deep bloody grooves. He howled, more in fury than in pain. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to do! This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to be!

_But_, he thought, panting, crouched on his elbows and knees, _I'm really not to blame. They should have seen a werewolf coming. They should have run, as fast as they could. And if they'd ended up killing me, fair play to them._ He gave a strangled yelp of a laugh. _Shouldn't have been wandering the moors at night, sonny._

He groaned, and crawled over to the corpse, which was lying limply and pathetically, what Fenrir assumed must have been its head lolling to one side. "I'm so… sorry," he whispered. His voice came out a croak, and it hurt. "I'll… I'll write to your family." But this was a lie. He had no intention of ever letting anyone know about this. This was a mistake, an accident. It was stupid, and it shouldn't have happened. And, by all accounts, it needn't have.

As long as no-one ever found out.

He felt something swoop in his stomach. His chest tightened and he began to shake, but he kept his eyes focused on the body. He could hardly believe he was about to do this. It didn't seem right. No, it_wasn't_ right, he knew that, but he didn't see that he had any other choice.

He fumbled in what was left of his robes for his wand. The tip was protruding trough the shredded fabric, and the usually polished wood had begun to splinter. Silently, Fenrir thanked whatever was out there, whoever was in charge, for that small mercy. But his hand was shaking too badly for him to perform the spell he needed to. He was trying to Transfigure the body; he was good at Transfiguration. To make it smaller, shrink it… something he could hide. But his arm trembled and to his frustration he felt tears run down his face as he tried in vain to get the spell right. His magic just didn't seem to be working. Gold sparks fluttered from his wand and fizzled out.

"_Work_! WORK, damn you!" He waved his wand at the corpse, jabbing it, whipping it, howling as many different pronunciations as he could think of, but none worked. In fury, he tried other spells, trying to get something, _anything_, that would work.

A weak flash shot from the wand tip and hit the corpse, which shuddered, and then returned to its position, looking, if possible, limper than it had been before. Fenrir yelped. Tentatively, he reached out and prodded it. It gave an unpleasant wobble. Fenrir frowned. A feeling of desperation stealing over him, he lifted it by what should have been its shoulders, shaking it. Instead, it felt as though he was holding a bag of meat, and he dropped it, recoiling it horror. Somehow, he'd manage to Vanish all its bones.

"No, no, NO!" He pounded the ground with his fists in anger, and shouted a stream of obscenities at the corpse.

The light outside was beginning to get brighter. It had turned from grey to silver, shining and bouncing off the snow. The blood that stained it glistened, still wet. But the blood in Fenrir's hair and under his nails was beginning to harden, and form a crust. Fresh blood was still seeping from the cuts on his face, trickling into his mouth like some vapid river. It tasted metallic, and made him cringe. He made a decision.

Clenching his teeth, he pulled the corpse close to him and held it clumsily, his wand sticking out at the wrong angle and one of the rubbery arms folded awkwardly against his own. He took a deep breath and focused all his will on Disapparating. He didn't know what he was going to do with the body when he got home, but he wasn't going to leave it here.

/

He Apparated into the garden and rushed immediately to the door, fumbling with the lock. _If anyone saw…_ He trod bloody snow into the carpet but he didn't care. He dropped the body immediately inside the door, where it landed with a thud, staining the carpet. Fenrir turned and blasted the snow with his wand, melting it, getting rid of the blood. Then he stepped inside, pulling the door shut with an un-neighbourly bang.

He paused for a moment, wringing his hands. _Where do I put this?_ He picked it up again, and hoisted it over his shoulder like a sack, running upstairs and into the bathroom, tossing it into the bath. He stopped, panted. Red dots were appearing in front of his eyes, but he couldn't tell if they were real or not – blood had splattered all over the white ceramic tiles. Fenrir's head was spinning as he drew the curtain. _Not here, not here._ That wouldn't stand up to any inspection. The bulge behind the curtain made it pretty obvious that there was something there that shouldn't be.

He tore it back and slung the corpse over his shoulder again, turning the taps on full power. The water gushed out and washed the blood away, swirling and red, down the plug hole. But Fenrir didn't stand around to watch it. He rushed to the bedroom, with vague thoughts of hiding it in his wardrobe.

He flung the door open and reached a hand into the darkness, pulling out an old pair of robes. He tossed them on the floor, and threw the body on top, bundling it all up in a neat little package. He was aware he was panting heavily, and his breath sounded hoarse. He kept making involuntary squeaking sounds, yelps of shock and fear and anger and worry. He was crying, but he didn't care. He threw the bundle into the wardrobe, and slammed the door shut, pressing his back against it and sinking to the floor.

He must have sat there for an hour, maybe more, but he'd lost track of time. His mind drifted to memories of the night before, blurry and disjoined. It was surreal, and at the back of his mind he was possessed by a deep fear that the body was going to break free from its fabric restraints and break down the door. This thought started as a seedling, then grew and grew, until it overcame the memories, and forced Fenrir to scramble to his feet and fling the door open. But there was no reanimated witch or wizard there to greet him; instead, there was simply the bundle he had left, scrunched on the floor, looking very suspicious.

Fenrir stared at it, frowning. He knew he was going to have to find a better place to put it. He drew his wand and tried, futilely, to Vanish it. Perhaps it was because he wasn't focused, or because it wasn't an object as such, but it went nowhere. Scowling, he put his wand away and lifted the bundle. He grabbed a fistful of the robes and carried it downstairs, holding it away from him. He wanted it to be as far away from him as possible. He knew there would be a visit in a day or two, by Ministry officials, once the death was reported as suspicious. If they thought there was a werewolf involved they would definitely be looking for someone to pin it on. They wouldn't accept his pleas that he was a god man who'd made a mistake.

He carried it to his living room and dropped it with a thud. _The sofa_, he thought. The sofa would be a good place to start. _No-one will look in the sofa._ So he got out his wand and feverishly began to dig the stuffing out of his sofa, leaving a gaping cavity, a skeleton of wood. He lifted the bundle and dropped it in, sealing it over. It was patchy, but believable. _Why would there possibly be any reason to suggest I've hidden anything in there? No, it's just an old sofa._

But he knew it wouldn't do. For one thing, it would start to smell after a day. For another, he wasn't going to have to face sitting on top of the body all day. So he reopened the sofa and lifted it up again, staring around the house, panic-stricken. Someone could call at the door any minute. The longer he dragged this around the more likely it was that someone would find out. What if Fortescue called? Or one of his friends from the support group?

Something in the kitchen caught his eye, something big, and black, and shiny. But he couldn't… He couldn't possibly…

It was only sheer desperation, a prickling sensation creeping up his spine, that made him do it. He couldn't see any other way to get rid of it. He thought he must have been half out of his mind, but after killing someone, there wasn't anything he could do that would really have been that much worse. At least, that's what he told himself as he unwrapped his bundle of robes and lifted the contents into his cauldron.

His face was screwed up, not in concentration, but in disgust at himself. He could hardly believe what he was doing, or why he had to. But he drew his wand, and sent a jet of hot water into the cauldron, and stirred it feverishly. _Doesn't look right._ He hurried to his cupboards and pulled out whatever was in them, scattering condiments on the ground as he did so. _Potatoes… leeks… pepper… lots of pepper…_He threw in everything he could find, seizing a knife and chopping it unevenly. It didn't matter how it tasted, all that mattered was that it _looked_ like a beef stew.

_Something wicked this way comes._

And then, because it was lumpy and brown and bubbling, he backed out of the room, and went to take a shower.

/

When he'd washed the blood out of his hair (he'd stood in the shower sullenly until the water had run cold), he didn't bother getting dressed. Instead, he tore a sheet from his bed and Apparated to the house down the street. There was something else he had to do. It would be painful. He knew it would be. But the way he saw it, he had no other choice. The Ministry would be around sooner than he'd be able to clean the house, make it presentable. He couldn't pull off being man who was living an almost normal life. He wasn't anymore.

So he threw himself against the wall of the house, climbed the stairs, tumbled through the hole in the floor. He head-butted the windows, smacked his forehead against the stairs. He grabbed great wooden splinters from the debris on the floor and dragged it across his chest and legs. He gnawed on his forearms and shoulders. He did everything, in fact, that he imagined he would do when he was feral. And then he hunched into a ball in the corner, shivering and weeping.

But at least it would look like he'd been there last night. Because as far as anyone knew, he had been. The walls were stained with fresh blood. His wounds would not heal before he was investigated. There was no reason to suspect he had been anywhere else. It was (_diabolically_, he thought) perfect.

/

He took a bath and dressed in his best robes (which were still his best, though looking decidedly shabbier than they had been when he bought them). He took out his wand and, facing the bathroom mirror, hacked off chunks of his hair. The finished result was uneven, but an improvement. He brushed his teeth, rigorously, seven times. And he gathered up his work: scrolls of parchment with notes and essays and speeches and statistics; the plans for the Werewolf Liaison Office. And taking care to avoid looking towards the kitchen door (although it was closed), he left his house and Disapparated to the street on which the visitor's entrance to the Headquarters of the Ministry of Magic was located.

Surreptitiously glancing around for Muggles, he slid into the phone box, and dialled the Ministry's number. A cool female voice asked him to state his name, and (after a lengthly discussion – the voice did not seem to approve of his presence) he was provided with a gleaming silver badge, reading, _Fenrir Greyback, No Appointment_.

"Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."

Then the telephone box quivered, and began to lower itself into the ground. Everything went dark, until, gears grinding, it came to a halt in a gleaming hall. "The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day," said the voice in the phone box.

Fenrir stepped out, gazing around in a sort of trance. He had heard about the Ministry of Magic, seen it featured in the _Daily Prophet_, but it was really quite something to find himself in the middle of it. He wandered into the crowd of witches and wizards (some of whom where appearing with a _whoosh_ from the fireplaces that lined the hall), still staring around, not looking where he was going. But the crowd carried him to a huge golden fountain. He paused. Beyond the fountain, he could see huge golden gates, to the left of which was a desk labelled _Security_.

Shaking himself out of his daze, Fenrir walked hesitantly up to the desk. The man sitting there shifted in his seat slightly, as though he thought Fenrir was some sort of threat.

"Hello," said Fenrir, and in his eagerness to do everything properly began fumbling desperately in his robes for his wand. The security wizard blinked and sat back, waiting for him to retrieve it. Fenrir extracted it, and pointed the handle towards him hesitantly.

"Thank you," said the man, in a clearly unimpressed voice, and after he'd determined it was alright, and scanned Fenrir with a thin golden rod, he handed him his wand back and said with a raised eyebrow, "What are you here for, anyway?"

"I want to speak to the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures," said Fenrir, trying to keep his voice level.

"Without an appointment?" asked the man with a snort. "Good luck." And he waved Fenrir on through, shaking his head, distinctly unimpressed.

He passed through the golden gates, fought his way through the crowds of people, and reached a lift. When he got in, it soared upwards and after a few stops a voice announced, "Level Four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office and Pest Advisory Bureau."

This was it. This was his big moment. He took a step out of the lift, whose doors closed behind him, and looked around hesitantly. A couple of people walked past, apparently taking no notice of him. Fenrir swallowed and set his jaw, and marched towards the end of the hall, reading plaques on the doors. He passed around several corners before he saw it: a large oak door with a bronze plaque reading_Joseph A. Hanson, Head of Department_.

Fenrir stopped. He took a deep breath. He shook himself. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. This was his one chance to bring together everything he'd been working on. This was his chance to set the record straight. He raised his fist and knocked on the door. It swung open almost immediately, revealing a tall, thin man with iron-grey hair and hands like giant spiders who appeared to be in somewhat of a rush. But he paused, and looked Fenrir up and down.

"Who are you?" he asked, a hint of disdain in his voice, looking at Fenrir's armful of scrolls and shabby robes.

Fenrir blinked, and swallowed. The first impression he had wanted to make would not have been one where his fist was hovering inches from Mr Hanson's face. He lowered it dejectedly. "I'm, um, I'm Fenrir Greyback, Sir. I wanted to talk to you about—"

"Not now, not now." Mr Hanson waved an impatient, spidery hand. "I have a meeting with Kevin Brocklehurst, those newts have been at it again – no, but, sorry, who are you?"

"F-fenrir Greyback, Sir."

"Did we have an appointment?"

"No, Sir, I've – I've–" _I've been so traumatised by a recent murder I committed while completely unaware that I feel I need to do something in order to fix it, and I can't wait any longer._ That would never do. Why hadn't he made an appointment? Then he would have at least looked completely innocent. He felt himself go pale, paler than he already was, and gaped at Mr Hanson. Mr Hanson frowned back.

"Well, you take a seat there—" he conjured one, "and if you're still there when I come back I'll try and fit you in for five minutes. You really should have scheduled an appointment," he said as he walked away. "I'm a busy man, you know."

Fenrir watched him leave, and then sat in his chair, miserably. The chair wasn't nearly as comfortable as it could or should have been. It was hard and wooden, and made his buttocks numb. Leaning forward, Fenrir rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists, scrunching all the documents together and trying to think of how the situation would have played out if he had made an appointment. He would have been a lot more confident, that was for sure. And a lot more prepared. He would have taken notes on his notes, about how to arrange them into a logical, coherent presentation structure. The thought didn't occur to him to do this while Mr Hanson was away; he was too busy trying not to think of what was waiting for him at home.

He finally heard Mr Hanson's footsteps coming back up the corridor, businesslike and brisk, followed by another set, more shuffling, sounding hesitant and inexperienced. Fenrir looked up. The footsteps following Mr Hanson belonged to a younger man: stocky and dark-haired, sporting a moustache. It took Fenrir a few moments to recognise him. The moustache was new.

"Walden?" he croaked.

Walden froze. He stared at Fenrir, his eyes blank. Fenrir could tell he didn't recognise him. Then something clicked into place.

"_Fenrir_?" he yelped.

"Oh, you know him?" asked Mr Hanson, opening the door to his office, and gesturing for Fenrir to stand up. Fenrir did, grinning at Walden.

"Why – what – what are you doing here?" asked Walden, whose hand had slid into his pocket, his fist clenched. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.

"I'm here to speak to Mr Hanson," said Fenrir, nodding his head towards the office. "Why are you here?"

"I'm his assistant," said Walden slowly, his eyes flickering over Fenrir's scars.

"Really?" said Fenrir, genuinely surprised.

"Yes."

"Well, that's fantastic! Really, congratulations. I didn't realise I'd see you here."

"You… didn't?" Walden's fist loosened.

"No, I just came to talk to…" Fenrir looked towards the slightly ajar door and realised Mr Hanson was waiting for him. "Should we go in?"

"Right," said Walden. "Yes."

He waited for Fenrir to turn before following him into the office. Mr Hanson sat behind his desk, his fingertips pressed together. The office looked comfortable, with a gold carpet and an ornate grandfather clock. There were several smaller desks around the walls, covered in books and parchment and small cages containing various little animals which squeaked and chirruped. A dark red quill was flitting up and down a piece of parchment. Mr Hanson was observing it with mild interest. He looked up when Walden shut the door.

"Make this quick," he said abruptly. "MacNair, start taking notes."

Walden nodded and strode over to the desk, summoning a quill and parchment and raising his eyebrows, looking at Fenrir expectantly.

"Um…" stuttered Fenrir. Was he going to have to give his whole presentation in front of Walden? A stranger he could cope with, but talking about such _personal_ topics in front of one of his friends was another matter.

"I don't have all day," said Mr Hanson, glancing at the grandfather clock in a none-too-subtle manner.

"Right," said Fenrir, nodding and looking down at his papers, trying to find the notes on his introduction. "_The treatment of werewolves in society_… Hang on…" The page slipped from his hand, and in his scramble to retrieve it, he dropped most of the others. He knelt on the floor, trying to collect them. He pulled several of the pages closer, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Walden and Mr Hanson exchange a look. He frowned, and, deciding his best bet would be to read from the pages already in front of him, he stood up, and looked directly at the floor.

"_The treatment of werewolves in society gives cause for great concern. For many years these otherwise harmless humans have been maligned and mistreated..._" Mr Hanson gave a small cough. Fenrir looked up. Walden looked as though he was trying to suppress a giggle.

"Shall—shall I go on?" asked Fenrir, confused, trying not to look at Walden.

"You seem to have gathered a lot of material," said Mr Hanson. "Perhaps it would be best if you presented just the most vital points."

"Um, okay…" His eyes scanned the pages, looking for what he'd written about his plans. "I think – I think – _I believe that the best way of dealing with this_ – that's the unemployment rates –_best way of dealing with this is to form an office dealing principally with matters concerning the wizard-werewolf relations. Such an office would be ideal for strengthening ties and improving quality of life for persons suffering from lycanthropy. I propose the following_—"

"Mr Greyback, let me stop you there. I can see you've… done your research." Mr Hanson gave a quick glance towards the parchment strewn across the floor, and a smile began to play around the corners of his mouth.

"Yes," nodded Fenrir.

"I'm sure you know, then, that… werewolves… have been trapped in a limbo between the Beast and Being Divisions for quite some time now."

Fenrir nodded again. "Yes, and I'm trying to—"

"My point being," said Mr Hanson, his voice rising a little, "is that whatever presentation you are about to give is unlikely to change the current situation. We are fully aware of the difficulties werewolves face; however, we do not feel it would be beneficial to attempt to classify them once and for all as Beings."

"But you have to listen to me," said Fenrir desperately. "If we could just reach an understanding—"

"Of what nature? Werewolves – in their… _wild_ form, certainly, are Beasts. Failing to recognise them as such would be unwise. I won't ask if you… suffer from lycanthropy yourself," Mr Hanson said, and the corners of his mouth twitched once more as he cast his eyes over Fenrir's scruffy haircut and fresh scars, "but whatever the case, I'm sure you understand that the Department is doing all it can to make life as easy as possible for werewolves." There was a definite note of disdain in his voice.

"But they're not," said Fenrir, his heart beating faster. He abandoned his notes. "You're not doing anything – we can't even get a job, or tell people what we are – we're completely cut off from the wizarding world!" His voice, too, was growing louder, and he hadn't realised he was moving forward, towards Mr Hanson's desk. Mr Hanson stood up and leant forward, shouting now.

"Mr Greyback, do you know how werewolves were treated in the sixteen-hundreds? They'd be rounded up and locked in a dungeon. I think you've got a pretty good deal nowadays, as long as you keep yourself to yourself. I can't help how other people react to you."

"You can bloody try! And I think you'd find you could – if you just LISTEN TO ME—"

Hanson reached for his wand and pointed it at Fenrir. "Stay back. Mr Greyback, you are a prime example of the reasons for the regulations you are fighting against. Werewolves are unpredictable and dangerous to normal wizards. I suggest you fight to change your species' behaviour before you attempt a reclassification. I don't have time for this. Leave my office now. Good day. MacNair, see him out."

Hanson lowered his wand and looked around to where Walden was still standing in the corner, staring at the exchange, his eyes and mouth open wide, his quill clearly not taking any notes. Walden shook himself out of whatever daze he'd been in, and nodded slowly. Hanson turned and swept out of the room, his cloak billowing behind him like smoke.

Fenrir blinked at Walden, nostrils flaring. He could feel his heart throbbing.

"Can you – talk to him—?" he spluttered.

Walden watched Hanson go, then started to edge towards the door. "I… I don't think so… He knows what he's talking about… He's the Head of Department after all… You'd better…" He gestured towards Fenrir's parchments, drawing his wand and flicking it so that they arranged themselves into a neat pile.

"Walden, listen to me." Before he realised what he was doing, Fenrir reached out and grabbed hold of Walden's shoulders. "You have to listen, it's not fair—"

"Get off me!" Walden squirmed out of his grasp. Fenrir dropped his arms and stared at him apologetically. After staring in horror for a second or two, Walden seemed to realise that Fenrir hadn't meant any harm, because he shrugged and sighed and said, "There's just not a lot you can do. I'll talk to him, but I don't think… I mean, werewolves are… I'm sure _you're_ not, but… You know… Bad luck, Fen." And he hustled him towards the door, and shut it in his face.

Fenrir stared at the closed door, absolutely furious, and pouting like a petulant child. How _dare_ Walden treat him like that! Was that all he'd wanted, when he'd written him that letter months ago? To find out just how to get rid of a werewolf? Didn't he care about him any more, now that he was one?

Enraged, he raised a fist, prepared to slam it right through the door – but stooped just before his skin collided with the wood. It wouldn't do to go punching holes in Ministry official's doors… and aside from that, it would probably set of some sort of alarm, and he'd be dragged from the building (kicking and screaming, certainly), and not allowed back. So much for a Werewolf Liaison Office… And speaking of which, he thought bitterly, he'd left his handwritten plans in Hanson's office, without a thought to duplicating them. But he wasn't going to return and ask Walden for them back. He turned on his heel and marched away, thinking bitter thoughts about _stupid brown-nosing MacNair_.

/

His mood, to say the least, did not improve when he got home. He Apparated into his back garden and his hand was hovering over the door handle, about to open it, when he heard a noise coming from the street in front. He could hear adult male voices, footsteps, someone thumping on a door. The voices were raised, but from the back of the house he couldn't make out what there were saying. He stole across the garden, around the side of building and to the front.

Three men in hooded black robes were standing on his doorstep. The tallest was at his door, pounding it, while the other two were standing well back. One had his arms crossed, looking bored, and the other, the smallest, looked nervous. His eyes kept darting around the street, following the paths of the few passing Muggles – who seemed to be trying hard to ignore the men. None of them had their wands out, but they were dressed so ostentatiously it would have hardly mattered.

"If he doesn't come out I'm going to blast the door down," Fenrir heard the tallest one say. "Can you see through the windows, Sacchetti?"

The short one placed his hands on Fenrir's window pane and peered in. Fenrir narrowed his eyes and watched him, livid, from behind the corner.

"Nope, can't see anything," said Sacchetti, standing back. "Just a musty old sofa and some quills. I don't think he's here, Lionel."

"Right then." Lionel reached into his robes and began to draw his wand. "Stand well back, please."

"WHAT THE HELL D'YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" roared Fenrir, and before he realised it, he had rushed over to the doorstep and grabbed a fistful of the front of Sacchetti's robes, pinning him to the wall. "THIS IS MY HOUSE!"

There was a blast from Lionel's wand and Fenrir was thrown backwards, onto the pavement. He heard a gasps from the end of the street and someone crying, "_Obliviate_!" The snow soaked into his robes, and his shoulder stung from grazing the kerb. He saw Lionel's figure looming over him. He scrambled to his feet, pulling out his wand. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

"Please calm down," said Lionel, who was pointing his own wand at Fenrir's chest. "We are members of the Werewolf Capture Unit of the Beast Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. You are Mr Fenrir Greyback, yes?"

"Yes," said Fenrir, breathing heavily, trying to keep his eyes on the three men at the same time. The other two both had their wands out and were advancing towards him. "What do you want with me? I haven't done anything."

"We're looking into a report of a werewolf attack on Saddleworth Moor last night," said the man whose name Fenrir didn't know. "We have reason to believe you may have been involved. Where were you last night?"

"I was at home," snarled Fenrir, turning his wand on that man. "I wasn't anywhere near Saddleworth Moor."

"Can anyone prove this?" asked Lionel.

"Of course they can't," Fenrir growled. "I was a _werewolf_. People don't usually stay to watch."

"We received a report that you left your place of work at seven minutes past three in the afternoon, and Disapparated. No-one saw you after that. Where did you go?"

"Home," repeated Fenrir through gritted teeth, but he felt something squeeze his stomach. He was going to _kill_ Fortescue…

"Right," said Lionel. "Do you mind if we have a look around?"

Fenrir did mind, a lot, but three wands were pointed at him and the shiny red badges from the Ministry on the front of the men's robes were gleaming in the sunlight, so he didn't see that he had any choice but to show them in.

After examining the house he went to in order to change, the man whose name he didn't know declared it plausible that Fenrir had been there last night, and Lionel marked something on a long scroll of parchment. Fenrir felt an enormous sense of relief, but Lionel insisted they examine his living quarters as well, in order to determine whether he did in fact reside there or not. A dilapidated house did not mean Fenrir was innocent, he said.

The hair on the back of Fenrir's neck prickled. He showed the men into his house. They went poking around in all of his rooms, starting with his bathroom and working their way throughout the building. He felt as though his house was being violated. What right did they have to come and treat it with such disrespect, to toss things of his around as though they were simply in the way? He followed them into each room, just to keep an eye on them. But it seemed that Sacchetti was trying to keep an eye on him, edging away whenever he thought he was standing too close. He didn't know why the frightened-looking young man had gone into a line of work where he'd have to deal with 'potentially dangerous' werewolves.

Fenrir held his breath almost throughout the entire encounter. He could feel something burning at the back of his throat; he didn't know what it was, or if he was going to be sick, or cry. All he knew was that he felt about ready to curl up under the stairs and die there. He could not imagine that it was possible to feel any worse. Until, of course, he did, very suddenly.

"What's this?" asked the one whose name he didn't know, upon entering the kitchen. Fenrir followed his gaze. He was staring at the huge black cauldron. Fenrir's throat tightened.

"Nothing," he rasped. The man raised his eyebrows. "It's a cauldron," said Fenrir, looking straight into the man's eyes.

"What are you brewing?" asked the man.

"It's… it's a stew." His voice trembled.

"Last night's dinner?"

"Yes."

The man checked his watch, then looked at Lionel. "You know, we haven't had lunch yet."

"No!" said Fenrir, louder than he'd meant to. The men looked at him suspiciously. "You can't – I mean – I'm not – I'm not a good cook," he finished lamely.

Lionel frowned, and dipped a finger into the brown concoction. Fenrir felt small beads of sweat break out on his forehead as Lionel brought his finger to his lips and tasted it. Fenrir clenched his fists and bit his tongue to stop himself from screaming out. He thought he might collapse. His entire body was trembling. "It's delicious," shrugged Lionel.

Fenrir thought he might vomit.

"Isn't it cold?" asked Sacchetti, his eyes flickering towards the doorway. "We don't have time to heat it up, we need to move on. And I'm not eating cold stew."

Lionel looked towards Fenrir, who couldn't meet his eyes. "Hm. Alright, then. Nice to talk to you, Mr Greyback. Thank you… for your cooperation."

And he and the other Ministry officials marked whatever they needed to on their forms, and left, bidding him good day. Fenrir showed them out, closing the door behind them with a weak smile, and then broke down.

He collapsed, onto his knees, still clutching the door handle, and began sobbing hoarse, dry sobs. Then he let go, and fell to the floor. His hands were stretched out in front of him, pale white, trembling, his fingernails obscenely long and sharp, curling over the tips of his fingers. He choked out a scream. _What have I done?_ These were not human hands. These were the hands of a monster… But still, Fenrir was not ready to let go of his humanity. They hadn't found out what he'd done, after all, had they? They'd let him go free. They thought he was innocent.

So he would be innocent, he decided. He would push these thoughts to the back of his mind, and be human again, for three hundred and fifty-three days a year. He stood up, still shaking, and went to flush his stew down the toilet. As it swirled away, he tried to let his thoughts go with it, and hold back a flood of tears.

_Human._ Humans were harmless. He would be harmless, too. He'd go back to the Ministry. He'd make them see sense. He was a perfectly harmless human. Why should anyone think any differently? He'd take another chance, and he would be successful this time, no matter how long it took. He would succeed. He would change the way wizards saw werewolves completely, once and for all.

In spite of himself, he smiled.


	6. Good Doggie

**Chapter Six**

**Good Doggie**

Fenrir continued to attend the support group as though nothing had happened, but he knew they knew something was up. He rarely spoke now; he just sat at the back and stared at the walls. Sometimes he'd listen to what they said, about new developments in the law. Because that was all he cared about these days. He became obsessed, sitting up all night, filling scrolls and scrolls of parchment with notes. He'd gathered quite a collection of books, some of them about law, some of them about werewolves, some of them about the attitude towards other non-human beings, and he read all of them from cover to cover, again and again.

He spent New Year's Eve alone. He lit a fire and sat in front of it, mesmerised by the dancing flames. Their heat flickered across his face but he shivered anyway. On the first of January the _Daily Prophet_ was delivered by owl, as it always was. The front page headline declared that this would be a great year, particularly for those investing in the toad trade, but at the bottom of page six, there it was. It was almost a footnote, it was so small. But it might as well have been the front page headline, thought Fenrir miserably.

_Hiker Killed on Saddleworth Moor_.

He was so tired.

He did not return to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. It seemed stupid to. He knew Fortescue couldn't have known what he had done – there was no way he could have known what he'd done – but he couldn't bear to face him. Fortescue was _good_, he was _kind_, and Fenrir wouldn't have been able to look him in the eye. He was only human. He didn't know, Fenrir thought bitterly, how it felt. How much his life had changed in six months. Six months that felt like a lifetime in themselves.

His wages stopped. He hadn't had any contact with his parents since Christmas. He had sat down one evening and begun to pen a letter, but he hadn't gotten past the first sentence, and he'd crossed that out so much that the tip of the quill had ripped through the parchment. He gave up. He had no money coming in. The only gold he had was in Gringotts, a tiny pile – so he visited Diagon Alley the one time, taking it all, bypassing the ice cream parlour.

He kept it in a pot under the stairs. He bought milk and meat and bread, but that was all, and sometimes he didn't even buy that. Sometimes he just sat and gazed at the fire. The flames looked so happy.

/

He became so absorbed in his obsession that he began to stop attending the support group. Artemis called to see him once or twice, and Fraser wrote him a letter which Fenrir supposed must have been strongly-worded (or maybe caring, or possibly both; he couldn't really remember), but then they stopped. He'd smiled at Artemis, benignly, and looked through her, and told her he was fine, thank you very much, and had decided to see how he got on without the group. He supposed she must have told the others not to call round. Fenrir never replied to Fraser's letter.

Not attending the meetings made time seem hazy. He kept odd hours, staying up until dawn and then crawling out of bed at three in the afternoon to continue his work. Sometimes he didn't sleep at all. All the days seemed the same; they began to run into each other one endless slick of time.

His calendar got lost under the scattered parchment that littered his floor.

/

He began to transform without realising it. It started as an ache in his stomach, but that was perpetual these days. He was holding a cup of tea when it happened, looking at the steam rising from the surface and contemplating something stupid – like what sort of sandwich he was going to make tomorrow. Because he thought he was getting better, he really did. He was starting to organise his material, and think about what he would say when he had the opportunity to present it to Mr Hanson again.

But he realised the fingers curling around the cup were lengthening, and he heard the bones crack. For a moment he thought he might be hallucinating, because he wasn't sure if he had had enough sleep, but then the pain ripped through his entire body and he yowled in agony. The cup dropped to the floor, staining the parchment and scalding Fenrir's feet, though that was the least of his worries.

_I need to get out_, he thought vaguely, clawing at his carpet and trying to pull himself towards the door in between screams. He had the idea that remaining in his house would be worse: his plans were there, the plans he'd worked so hard on, and money, and food… He reached the door and tumbled into the street, half-formed, his ears pricked, his fingernails bleeding. He tried to make it to the house at the end of the road and he was sure he was almost there, but it was so _dark_…

/

He woke up to birdsong. It was really lovely, he thought, and for a moment he was sure he was dreaming. The sunlight was just beginning to struggle through tree branches: it was a beautiful spring morning in a forest clearing. Moments later, he realised he oughtn't to be in a forest clearing, and adrenaline rushed through him like a shot. He sat up too quickly, the blood rushing to his head, making him feel ill.

And, of course, he'd done it again.

He had his arms wrapped around something, small and heavy. It was covered in blood, wearing a tiny pink jacket and blue jeans. He slumped against a tree, furious with himself, as well as feeling nauseous. The little body had a mop of hair on top. He reached out a hand, and as gently as he could, he brushed the thick strands away from its face.

It was a little girl. She was white as paper, her eyes closed, blood clotting around a gash in her forehead. Fenrir gave a shuddering gasp, and shut his eyes, holding her closer.

"It's not fair," he whispered, to no-one in particular.

She was so warm. He grimaced. He could feel her heart beating; it made him so uncomfortable.

His eyes snapped open. The girl was still breathing. She was dreadfully injured and horribly ill, but she was alive.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes," Fenrir whispered, laying her on the ground. "You're still alive. You're beautiful! I'm so sorry." He looked up from where he was crouched. He knew that before long he'd hear the sounds of men and dogs, looking for the little girl. They wouldn't know what he was. They wouldn't know what she had become. For a moment, he considered taking her with him – he would be able to provide her with proper care.

_But you can't even take care of yourself._

Feeling utterly hopeless, he did the only thing he could think of. He knew it wasn't subtle and he knew there would be a fuss made, but what else could he do?

In the earth beside the girl's head, he scratched out the word _werewolf_ with his fingernail. She was a Muggle and Muggles didn't believe in werewolves, but he couldn't _not_ let them know. What they did with this was up to them. He rocked back on his heels, clutching desperately at his hair. What could he do? What could he do? Was there anything he _could_ do? He didn't want to take the girl, he didn't want to steal her, but he didn't want anyone to get hurt. _Just leave_, said a voice inside him. _Leave her and forget about it._ Was that really his only choice? He looked around, desperately, as though searching for someone to appear from the trees and give him his answer, but no-one came.

"Help me!" he screamed, out of desperation, and a nearby flock of birds took flight, their wings beating the air as they rocketed off with frightened screeches, and then all was silent again.

And then footsteps began to sound beyond the trees, and Fenrir had to get away as fast as possible.

/

It was only after Disapparating that he realised how the girl may have been better off if he'd killed her. The way werewolves were treated… Many people would certainly believe you were better off dead than having to live with that.

_Still_, he reasoned, as he stood blankly in his shower, _I didn't kill her. I'm not a murderer._ And he stepped out of the shower, with a renewed passion, one he hadn't felt for months. The girl didn't have to suffer. He would make sure of it. He would make the world a better place for werewolves, and especially for her. One day, she would thank him. She would know how it felt to transform, and she would understand that he wasn't to blame. And he would thank her, for giving him his life back.

So he set back to work with a renewed fervour. Within days, his project was completed and ready to go. It was the length of a novel, the pages covered on both the front and the back, and the evidence it held, Fenrir thought, was possibly the most compelling argument for werewolf equality anyone would ever read – if he did say so himself.

He got himself an appointment at the Ministry of Magic, and waited for it patiently. When he entered Mr Hanson's office, the latter raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Walden stood awkwardly in the corner, looking as though he really wanted to step out of the window. But Fenrir beamed at them both, and set about using presentation techniques he'd researched and practised to perfection.

"You do present a very compelling argument," said Mr Hanson, "but I believe we have already discussed the difficulties with categorising werewolves?"

Walden flinched, as though Fenrir was going to leap forwards again. But Fenrir just nodded, and explained again the possible changes.

He was called back for several meetings after that. Eventually he was offered a temporary position in the office of the Werewolf Support Services – "a sort of PR, if you like," smirked Mr Hanson. Fenrir liked that very much.

/

His office was tiny, though he preferred to call it 'cosy'. He'd bought a comfy little armchair for behind the desk. He had proper filing cabinets for his notes now, and owls actually came with letters for him. He'd constantly be invited to meetings and 'events'; people wanted him to speak on behalf of werewolves, apparently, although it seemed that what they really wanted to do was make disbelieving noises and patronise him. But he kept a level head.

Sometimes he saw Artemis in the corridor, or at meetings, or at lunch. It had been slightly awkward at first (Fenrir had avoided her, ducking behind statues and hiding behind pamphlets about dragon scale rot), but after some time they were back on friendly terms. Fenrir apologised for leaving so abruptly.

"It wasn't anything personal," he said, "and I'm very sorry. I just felt like I needed some space. To get my head sorted."

"Don't worry about it," she said. "As long as we know you're healthy and happy. The others would like to hear from you, though."

He didn't want to disappoint her, so he popped in once or twice, just to say hello, and tell them about the progress he was making. They all seemed fairly happy, if a bit miffed at his abandonment. He felt guilt over that, just a twinge, but he didn't really have time to attend the group regularly any more – when he wasn't writing letters and filling out forms, he was sleeping, or spending time with his co-workers. There were three members of the Werewolf Support Services who had a similar job to him, although Fenrir wasn't exactly sure what they did. All he knew was that he took care of the business he needed to, and they took care of the business they needed to. They were all fighting for werewolf equality, and needed to devote time to their jobs instead of worrying about the others – at least, that was what Wayne told him. Wayne had explained the roles several times, but Fenrir remained baffled, as did Myron and Ophelia.

Wayne was a Squib, but what he lacked in magical skills he made up for in knowledge. He was really supposed to be working in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, seeing as he'd gone to a Muggle school, but they'd shunted him down to Werewolf Support. Wayne wore thick glasses and had short, bristly, black hair. Though it didn't suit him, he said he kept it shaved to avoid unnecessary tatting. He had tried to give Fenrir hair advice – "Yours is so curly; it would be easier if you just got rid of it…" – but the three of them had laughed at him, and told him to please be sensible, and to have another beer.

They drank a lot of beer when they were together. At the end of the week, more often than not they'd head down to the pub, and then spend long evenings at one or another's house, talking about anything and everything. Fenrir finally had friends – people his age, people he could identify with – he hadn't had that since he was at school.

When he asked them why they didn't attend the support meetings, they giggled and exchanged shifty looks and explained that Myron had had a falling out with Artemis long ago.

"None of my friends go, anyway," Myron shrugged. "It's just not cool, you know what I mean?" Myron had an air of confidence about him that was captivating; when he talked, everyone paid attention. He was the one that mostly got saddled with proactive campaigning: standing behind stalls at conventions and things like that. Ophelia was almost in love with him; everyone knew it, but Myron pretended not to notice. It was this infatuation they were talking about one night at the pub, two years having passed since Fenrir's last huge mistake.

Myron and Wayne had stayed late at the Ministry. They had some business to take care of, which neither Ophelia nor Fenrir were very interested in at all. It was the full moon that evening, and they both knew they had only a couple of hours to relax, so they'd decided to use them for actual _relaxation_, rather than strenuous paperwork.

"Do you think he's using the workload as an excuse not to spend time with me?" asked Ophelia, nervously drumming her fingers on the table beside her wine glass. "He's been really distant lately, I think he's trying to get away from me. He probably thinks I'm really clingy or something."

"I'm sure he doesn't," said Fenrir, taking another sip of his beer. "We _have _had a lot of work to do recently. He's probably just busy."

"Still," Ophelia pouted, "I'd rather he didn't put it in front of _me_. Oh, Fenrir, don't look now, but there's a woman over there checking you out."

Fenrir raised his eyebrows. "_Is_ there?" When Ophelia nodded, he slowly turned around, under the pretence of looking for the toilets, and his eyes came to rest on a woman sitting at the bar. She looked vaguely familiar, and quickly glanced away when she saw him looking. She was wearing a purple velvet dress, teasingly low-cut, and had chestnut curls cascading down her shoulders. She was alone. "I think," said Fenrir, turning back to Ophelia, "I am going to go to the bathroom." She smirked.

He got up, headed towards the toilets, and checked the woman out from the back. _All good there_, he thought, but as he was standing behind her, she turned her head, looking to see where he'd gone. Their eyes met. "Ah," said Fenrir, and he saw Ophelia laughing from the corner of his eye.

"Hello," she said, and gave him a little smile.

"Hello," he said gruffly, and there was an awkward moment of silence before she said, "It's Fenrir, isn't it?"

"Huh?" said Fenrir. "I mean, yeah, it is. I'm sorry, do we…?"

She smiled apologetically. "You used to work in an ice-cream parlour in Diagon Alley. It's not that I… I mean, Fenrir's the kind of name that sticks in your mind."

"Right," nodded Fenrir. "Of course. And you're, um…"

"I'm Leona," she said. "You gave me a free ice lolly once."

"Of course! Leona… Lupin, wasn't it? With the broomstick, and… and the little fella. How is he, anyway?" Fenrir did not know why he was enquiring as to the wellbeing of Leona's son, only that he had vague thoughts about getting on her good side.

"Remus? He's doing well, thanks. He's just learnt how to play Exploding Snap, so I don't envy the babysitter at this moment in time." She gave a little laugh.

"Are you out for any special reason?"

"Well, it's our anniversary, so, we thought a night out, away from Remus and his spontaneously combusting card games would be the perfect way to celebrate it."

"An-anniversary?" said Fenrir, and he felt something inside him deflate. _Damn._

"Yes, our sixth."

Fenrir opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn't sure what. It may have been a polite excuse, or a prying question, or a pathetic joke in order to save face, but whatever it was was interrupted by the very topic of conversation, who, at that very moment, came bounding from the toilets into their midst. "Speak of the Devil," muttered Leona, as a tall, sandy-haired man with a firm chin and a loud laugh slung his arm over her shoulder. He was obviously drunk.

"Alright, there?" he said to Fenrir, who took a couple of steps back, away from the man. "Not flirting with my woman, I hope?"

Leona shrugged his arm off her shoulders. "No," said Fenrir, as she said, "I can talk to whoever I like, John."

"Who's this, then?" asked John Lupin, as though he had not heard her, staring hard at Fenrir, as though he was trying to keep him in focus. When neither of them answered, not knowing what to say, he took an unsteady step towards Fenrir, and prodded him in the shoulder. "Who're you?"

"I'm Fenrir," said Fenrir, "and I was just leaving." He tried to step away, but Lupin grabbed the hem of his robes.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hang on a – hang on a minute. I've heard that name before."

"Let go of me."

"No, you're, you're…" He turned back to look at his wife. "This is the crazy werewolf from the ice cream shop."

Fenrir felt his muscles stiffen. He was frozen to the spot. Leona looked at him apologetically, embarrassed. Then she looked back to her husband, and said, "He's not… Just let him leave, okay?"

"You know my wife?" asked Lupin, ignoring her again, and turning back to Fenrir, who spluttered, not knowing the right answer. "'Cause – 'cause she told me that there was a werewolf in an ice cream shop one day… and… and now you're TRYING TO FLIRT WITH HER." Half the bar fell silent.

"No, I'm not…"

"You are, but you can't, 'cause you're…" He lifted his hands and placed them one on either side of Fenrir's face. "'Cause you're a _dog_, that's why. A bloody stinking dog." He looked straight into Fenrir's eyes, and began to laugh. Fenrir's jaw tightened. His blood felt like it was boiling.

"John!" Leona leapt from her seat and grabbed his shoulders. "John, you're drunk. Let's go home. I'm so sorry about this," she said to Fenrir, as she pulled him away. "I'm so sorry."

"No, wait, wait," said Lupin, pushing Leona off him and turning back to Fenrir, who was standing silent, shaking, trying not to retaliate. _He's just a drunken fool._ "We can play a game, right? Dogs love games. And I love… dogs." Fenrir's hand curled into a fist. "Shots!" announced Lupin.

From behind him, Fenrir could see Leona, and she looked terrified. He wanted this man away from him, and he knew he wasn't feeling right, and he should leave and get his head together, but at the same time all he wanted was another drink, smooth out the situation.

"Yeah, alright," he said, and Lupin pronounced the rules. Fenrir was too busy actually ordering the shots to listen, but he was sure they wouldn't have made sense anyway. When he tuned back in again, Lupin was rambling about a Muggle invention called a 'tin can'.

"Ready?" asked Fenrir shortly. Lupin reached for his glass at the same time Fenrir did, and started to down it, but as Fenrir had the glass halfway to his mouth, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"We have to go now." It was Ophelia. "It'll be dark in a couple of hours."

Fenrir paused. He'd forgotten about that. Full moon tonight. He wondered briefly if anyone else in the pub realised. They didn't seem to. Those who had gathered round and were cheering Lupin on probably knew neither that he was a werewolf, nor that he would be transforming later tonight. "Just fifteen minutes," growled Fenrir from the side of his mouth. "I just want to… show him…" And they began their game.

He was dimly conscious of Ophelia watching. He could see her from the corner of his eye, and he could see Leona, standing far back, hiding her face in embarrassment. But after a few shots, he didn't care. It was only when Lupin slammed his glass back on the table and stumbled backwards, looking for all the world like he was going to pass out, did Fenrir stop drinking. He stood clutching the table trying to focus on the sandy-haired blur.

"Um… stupid… stupid… mongrel," said Lupin, stumbling forwards, and leaning on the bar. He propped himself up with his elbow, and waved a finger in Fenrir's face.

"I'm _not_… not a mongrel." Fenrir lurched forward, his hands outstretched, going for Lupin's throat. Somewhere in the background, he saw Leona panicking, and then a blur that might have been Ophelia, whispering something in her ear. Leona began to hurry towards the bar.

Fenrir's nails missed Lupin by inches, and Lupin laughed. "'Course you're not, you're… you're… um…" He paused, trying to think of the word, swaggering around the counter to where Fenrir stood. Fenrir picked up the nearest punter's bottle, unaware and not caring that it was still half-full, preparing to swing it at him. Lupin's hands reached out, his fingers grabbing for the front of Fenrir's shirt, and he patted him on the stomach, mumbling, "Good doggie…"

"Gettoffme," growled Fenrir, swinging the bottle, hitting Lupin on the back, hard enough to bruise. Lupin stumbled backwards half-laughing in pain. Leona, by this time, was standing just inside the circle of people who had surrounded them, and she grabbed her husband, and whispered something urgently in his ear. Lupin's grin widened.

"Pedigree," he said. "That's the word. I've always… always wanted a ped—pedigree… pooch." And he stumbled forward again, reaching out as though to grab hold of Fenrir's hair.

"I'M NOT A DOG," Fenrir roared, taking a swing at him and punching his nose. Blood immediately started to trickle from it, red and oozing.

"Fenrir!" Ophelia's voice was in his ear again, sounding scared. Her arms were around him, pulling him away. "Fenrir, we have to go, _now_."

"Not… Go…" growled Fenrir, enraged, struggling against her hold. "Show… him…" But she was strong, stronger than any human could have been, and she managed to pull him across the room, out of the door. They stood in the cold, grey street, her trembling with shock and fear and cold, him with anger. "Let me go," he mumbled. "Not finished…" But she forced him against the wall of the building opposite.

"You idiot," she snarled. He stared at her, panting, until he'd calmed down and stopped struggling. "You're not up to Disapparating, are you?" He grunted. She rolled her eyes. "Come on, then," she said, taking his hand in hers. "We have to get home."

Everything went black. Fenrir felt as though he was being crushed inside a giant nutcracker; he thought his head might implode. There was no air. And then, suddenly, they landed on solid ground once more.

"Wait…" Fenrir looked around; Ophelia was already tugging on his sleeve, pulling him to the left. "We're not… this is… Where are we?"

"You need to get inside," said Ophelia breathlessly, and Fenrir realised they were in his street, outside the empty house. "We don't have a lot of time." She sounded anxious, but Fenrir couldn't register it. All he registered was the fact that he was miles away from where he should have been; he _should_ have been beating John Lupin to a bloody pulp.

"No…" he said, as Ophelia took the covering from the window. "I need to be… I should go…"

"Get inside!" she said, sounding hysterical now.

He shouted something back at her, and she retaliated. And he kept shouting at her. He didn't know why, he just knew that he was furious. Furious with her, furious with himself, furious with John Lupin, and he had to fix it. He didn't know how long they argued for, he couldn't remember aiming a punch at the side of her head, and he didn't remember turning and running, away from the house and into the street. He didn't know how he was able to Disapparate, but he did, and he found himself once again outside the little pub.

He smirked, and began to swagger unsteadily towards the door, but a crunching pain in his gut stopped him. Instead, he staggered into the nearest alleyway, and threw up all the contents of his stomach. He was still standing, forehead pressed to the wall, head spinning, when it happened again. He doubled over, screeching, his stomach twisting in ever-tighter knots.

It had started. Ophelia wouldn't be able to follow him now, she wouldn't be able to stop him, he thought. But he quickly realised that he wouldn't be able to do what he wanted, now that he wouldn't have fists. He tore off his robes, scrunched them up, and stuffed them behind a skip. Then his shoulders hunched and his hands curled involuntarily. He rolled on the ground, shrieking, and closed his eyes. Everything went black.

When he opened his eyes, he expected to be lying naked somewhere, but that wasn't the case. He was in the same alleyway, he was sure of that, but it was as though he was looking at it from behind a pane of smoked glass. He was caught between two hazes; between the drink, and the wolf. He was only vaguely aware of what was going on. He was seeing the world through the eyes of the wolf, powerless to make any decisions, but his head felt to woolly to do so anyway.

The wolf's nose twitched. It could smell something, something Fenrir recognised. It was mingled with the booze and the rubbish and the vomit lying in the street. It was human.

The wolf turned, and crept towards the end of the alley. A burst of light and noise as the pub door was thrown open. The wolf crouched behind the wall, as a man stumbled into the street with a woman on his arm, jabbering in a language that sounded all at once familiar and foreign.

The man and his lover vanished into the darkness, and the wolf crept into the street. There it was again, that human smell. The wolf sniffed the ground, and then, without warning, its hackles rose, and a snarl escaped its black lips. Fenrir recognised the smell; he hadn't registered it the first time, but now it was so clear. It was the smell of Lupin. The wolf threw its head back and howled.

And then it leapt forwards, paws outstretched, heading down the road, following the scent. The pads of its feet thudded on the ground; it was deserted, virtually silent but for the occasional click of the wolf's claws on the hard ground. The smell was faint, but it was still there, leading all the way back to Lupin's house, leading all the way back to _him_.

They were already at their house. They were standing there, on the doorstep, in the darkness, a yellow glow emitting from the open door. She was supporting him; he couldn't stand up straight. A shadowy figure appeared at the door. A voice, just a voice. The wolf crept behind a bush. Leaves rustled.

_What was that?_ the voice asked.

But she didn't care. She took him inside, and all three of them disappeared for a moment. The wolf crept closer, into the shadow of the wall of the house. To where the scent of him was stronger. And then the door burst open again. There was a blast of light, and a flurry of movement. The wolf's ears flattened against its head, its shoulders rising.

_Goodbye_, someone was saying, _and thanks for your help._

There was laughter, and an apology, and the sound of gold changing hands. And then, all of a sudden, there was a new scent. It was fresher than the others. It smelt of milk and soap and freedom.

Footsteps.

_Remus, come back_, someone laughed. The footsteps came closer.

_Don't worry about him, he's just exploring._

_The world's so different when it's dark._

_Yes, indeed_, thought Fenrir, who was vaguely lucid. The footsteps came closer.

A young boy's face peered at him from around the corner. The light of the moon shone off his hair, making it gleam, making his round little face seem to be glowing. _I recognise this one, too._

_Doggie?_ The word came from the boy's mouth. _What are you doing there, Doggie?_

It took Fenrir less than a second to make the decision. Any longer, and he probably wouldn't have. Any longer, and he would have fought the wolf. Even in his drunken state, he would have fought it. He would have turned and run, with his tail between his legs, but he didn't. Because at the back of his mind, a thought had formed. Lupin loved dogs, did he? Wanted a pedigree pooch, did he? Well, Fenrir was about to make his day.

_Good doggie._ The boy reached out a hand to pat the wolf's muzzle. It stuck out its tongue, licked the skin… and then it sank its fangs into the soft flesh of the boy's arm.

A scream split the night. There was the sound of more footsteps, hurried this time, shouting, and the _screaming_.

(_Remus!_)

The screaming made Fenrir's ears ache. He was dimly aware of what he was doing, realised now that it was irreversible, but too late. A flash of light, red hot, shot from somewhere; where, he didn't stay to find out. It hit the wolf's shoulder as it turned to run, singing the fur. Fenrir could smell burning flesh, hear a yelping, hear shouting, and the child's crying. And the footsteps were following the wolf, pounding on the ground behind it. More flashes of light were behind shot, but the wolf was faster than the woman and it dodged every one, tumbling into a ditch and out of sight.

The moon disappeared behind a cloud. Everything was dark. Only the wolf's harsh panting disturbed the silence of the night. The woman's footsteps died away; she'd gone back to her son.

An owl hooted, and then there was silence once more.


	7. Werewolves Are People Too

**Chapter Seven**

**Werewolves are People Too**

Fenrir woke up naked in a ditch. His head was throbbing and the sunlight made it worse. He groaned, and rolled over, burying his face in the dirt and fallen leaves. _What happened last night?_ Distorted images swam in his head, of shattered glass and vomit and litter and blood. He tried to swallow, past a lump in his throat, clenching his hands into fists and pressing his forehead harder into the earth. He'd bitten a child. Another child.

He let out a whine of despair. He could remember tracking the man home, he could remember the moment of trepidation before he latched onto the boy's arm, before he felt the blood wash over his tongue. Had he really become such a monster?

He had been the wolf last night. Until now, he had thought of it as someone else entirely: as a beast, a brute, with a mind and body of its own and no conscience. But he realised now that, not only was it always there, lurking inside of him, it was a part of him. The thought made him shudder, and retch. He kneaded his forehead with the heels of his hands.

He had no idea what to do. Short of lying in the ditch and sobbing until he just forgot about it, he didn't see that there was anything appropriate he could do. So he did that for a while, until all his sobs dried up and he had no tears left. His mouth had run dry, too. He couldn't taste the blood any more, but he could remember how it had tasted last night, how it had felt. It had been warm, and slimy – absolutely disgusting, but the thing that disgusted him the most was that he could remember how the wolf had _enjoyed_ it. How it had wanted more.

He took a deep breath of the clean air, and tried to sit upright. His back screamed in agony; a festering burn had formed on his right shoulder, where he'd been hit by the woman's spell. His head was still pounding, all his thoughts still swimming nonsensically, but the air made things clearer. What he needed to do now, he decided, was to go back to work and find the others. They would know what to do, they were all werewolves there. Surely they'd been in situations like this before.

He peered over the edge of the ditch. A Muggle farmhouse lay across the road. Chickens were pecking in the yard, and a small, plump woman with greying hair was pegging clothes on a washing line.

Fenrir watched her closely, shifting into a position of readiness. When the woman's basket was emptied, she slung it over her shoulder and walked with frustrating slowness back to the house, shutting the door behind her. At once, Fenrir sprang from the ditch, sprinted across the road and tumbled over the small wall outside the garden. He landed on the ground with a thud, but got to his feet immediately, running for the line. He grabbed the first garments he saw, and the door was flung open with a bang.

"'Oo are you? What are you doin' 'ere?" The voice sounded livid, and Fenrir heard the sound of a broom being picked up. Footsteps began to pound across the yard towards him, but he was already running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, towards another field.

Eventually, he slowed. The woman had stopped following him. He was standing in grass that came up to his knees, clutching his new clothes in such a way so as to protect his modesty – not that that mattered much any more. He examined the clothes: a pair of faded blue jeans, several sizes too big, and a frilly pink blouse.

"Thank you, Farmer's Wife," he mumbled, wishing she hadn't had such sharp hearing, and had allowed him the time to choose something more suited to his gender. He pulled them on anyway, feeling stupid, scrunching the front of the jeans so as to keep a hold of them. He deserved it, he thought, bitter at himself. He would return the clothes; he needn't add thievery to his list of crimes.

He hitched the trousers up further, and then set off, stumbling slightly, in what he felt must be the right direction. His head was still pounding and he desperately needed a drink of water.

/

He walked for at least an hour, stopping just to sit down every so often. His entire body ached, but pain didn't bother him as much now. People gave him odd looks as he reached the city. He managed to sneak onto a bus amid a stream of Muggles. His feet were raw and bloody and he was covered in mud and sweat but he didn't care.

"Stag party," he grunted to an old woman on the bus next to him, who was looking at him curiously.

He dismounted at the entrance to the Ministry of Magic. He knew he was technically late for work, and not at all presentable, but he didn't care. His only thought was getting to talk to one of his friends. They were always called in the day after the full moon in order to offer support and advice to people who had transformed the night before. Now, Fenrir was in need of that advice.

He hoped no-one would notice him. He tried to blend in with the crowd as they milled through the Atrium, and creep quietly to Myron's office, where he thought he could have a tall glass of water and a good, strong cup of coffee before getting cleaned up and having to talk about it. He was exhausted.

In order to get to Myron's office, Fenrir had to pass his own, and what he saw made him stop in his tracks. The door was slightly ajar, and Fenrir could hear the sound of voices inside, and of people moving boxes. He frowned. A snarl escaped his lips and he burst through the door, ready for a fight.

"Whoever's in my office, _get out_. I am NOT in a good moo—"

"As a matter of fact, I was just leaving," said Mr Hanson coolly, when Fenrir froze mid-sentence in the doorway.

Mr Hanson was standing right in front of him, and behind Mr Hanson, Myron and Wayne were lifting things from his desk and putting them into boxes while Walden watched. Ophelia was standing by the window, recording something on a piece of parchment.

"It's nice of you to join us at last," said Mr Hanson, when Fenrir said nothing, staring dumbstruck at the scene before him. "But if you'll excuse me, I have places to be. MacNair will explain the situation to you."

"Er, uh, wha'…?"

"You're fired," said Mr Hanson curtly. "And I do not have time to spend conversing with cross-Muggle-dressing werewolves. Good day to you." He swept past Fenrir, knocking him to one side. Fenrir stared helplessly after him. Then he turned back to his office, where his friends continued doing their jobs, not looking at him. Ophelia was staring resolutely out of the window.

"What's going on?" asked Fenrir, when no-one said anything.

Walden averted his eyes, and looked hard at his notes. Wayne appeared not to hear him, and Myron simply shrugged. "Apparently there was a complaint about you," he said, in the tone of voice of one discussing a Quidditch match. Fenrir's mouth dropped open. "Where did you go last night, anyway?" asked Myron. "Ophelia said you Disapparated, and then…" He trailed off.

"Ophelia," croaked Fenrir, and she turned to him, revealing a purple bruise that was blooming on her temple. Fenrir gaped. "I'm so sor—"

He didn't get to finish his apology, however, because looking at him seemed to be too much for Ophelia, who turned from the window and rushed over to him, smacking him across the face. He jerked backwards, caught completely off-guard, his eyes watering.

"You—You—" Ophelia was shaking.

"I'm sorry," muttered Fenrir, pressing a hand to his cheek as Myron took hold of Ophelia, pulling her into a hug.

"It was a Mr John Lupin," said Wayne, glancing up briefly from the box he was packing.

"What?" growled Fenrir.

"Who reported you," said Wayne, not looking up. "I read MacNair's notes. Mr John Lupin."

Walden scowled and muttered something about "bloody werewolves", apparently under the impression that none of them could hear him. Fenrir's head snapped to face him.

"You can shut up!" Fenrir roared. "You don't know anything about werewolves!"

Walden looked taken aback. "I work with you every day," he mumbled.

"You never even look at me!"

"Shut up, Fenrir," said Myron. "Look what you've done, you've upset Ophelia."

The hair on the back of Fenrir's neck prickled. He wasn't going to have Myron tell him what to do, especially not in the state he was in. Though he was exhausted and worn-down, he had no-one to turn to, nowhere to go, and fight was all he had left in him. "She's a big girl, she'll get over it."

Ophelia made a noise that sounded halfway between a strangled whimper and a growl, and tried to turn away from Myron, but he held her tight. "What the hell d'you think you're playing at?" snarled Myron.

"I've just walked for an hour dressed like a Muggle and my feet are sore and my head is sore and I'm hungover and I want to go home but I've lost my wand and now I've lost my job so in the grand scheme of things I don't really care if someone just wants to have a little cry!" Fenrir stopped when his breath ran out and his throat was too dry to say any more.

"She's not just _having a little cry_," said Myron, still snarling.

"She can speak for herself," snapped Fenrir.

"She's upset because you whacked her on the head and then went off and attacked some Muggle kid!" said Myron, louder, ignoring Fenrir.

"I—How do you know what I did last night?"

"Read my notes," muttered Walden, who had given up all pretence of not listening to their conversation.

"Oh, right," said Fenrir, turning on him. "They had a sneaky peak at your notes because they're filthy werewolves who just can't help themselves."

"I didn't _say_ that," mumbled Walden, backing into a wall.

"Really, Fenrir, you're not helping things," said Wayne.

"_Helping things_?" said Fenrir, turning to face Wayne so fast his head began to spin. "HELPING THINGS? You think anything I do now is going to _help things_?"

"You're sounding hysterical," said Wayne. "No, to be honest, I don't think anything you do _is_ going to help things, but you could at least not make it worse."

"HOW COULD ANYTHING I DO POSSIBLY MAKE IT ANY WORSE?"

"Well, you could stop shouting, for one thing."

"You just want me to leave quietly?" Fenrir snarled.

"It would probably be best if you did," said Wayne. "They're not going to want you here any more, not after what you did."

"And _what_, exactly, did I do, pray tell?" asked Fenrir, breathing hard through his nose.

"Well, attacking the kid for one thing," said Myron, while Wayne said, "Assaulting a member of the staff, and, yes, attacking a child."

"I didn't _mean_ to!" howled Fenrir. "I was changed, I was drunk, you know what it's like!"

"You think it's alright because you were _drunk_?" said Myron, sounding disgusted.

"No, but I couldn't help—"

"That's NOT an excuse," said Myron loudly. "Being drunk makes it ten times worse! None of us would get drunk on a full moon! That's completely irresponsible! Never mind the fact that you were out wandering the streets!"

"I COULDN'T HELP—"

"STOP MAKING EXCUSES!" This time it wasn't Myron, but Walden, who spoke. There was a very pregnant silence, broken only by Fenrir's panting and Wayne's occasional putting of things into boxes.

"_You_… _You_… You can… You don't know what it's like," said Fenrir through gritted teeth.

"Clearly, not as bad as you're making it out to be," said Walden. Fenrir said nothing. He simply stared at him. "Look. Look at your… colleagues. They get along just fine. It's just you who's go the problem."

"Do you have a death wish, MacNair?" growled Fenrir.

"Is that a threat?"

"It most certainly is."

"Well, I'm afraid I can't take it seriously, not when it's coming from a wandless man in a female Muggle's blouse."

"Wandless _werewolf_," Fenrir corrected him, his voice still a growl. "Maybe if you think it's so easy I'll just turn you into one, see how you like that. Like I did with that Muggle kid."

"You did that on _purpose_?" said Wayne, and the clock he was holding fell to the ground with a clatter.

Fenrir didn't know what to say. Of course he had – he would have killed the kid had he not meant to infect him. Of course he hadn't – why would he want to pass on the curse? So he just grunted. Silence fell on the room again. Then Walden smirked.

"They'll throw you in Azkaban for this, you know."

"I don't care," said Fenrir. "It's not like I've got much of a life as it is."

"I'd contradict you," said Myron bitterly, "but I think we're past that stage."

Fenrir knew what he meant. Yesterday, it could have been any one of them saying that. It could have been any of the four lamenting their condition. The others would have gathered round. They would have supported each other, mutually, pointing out the beautiful things in life and the reasons for living. They would have pointed out that they had each other and that no matter how bad things got that they were in this together. Superficial words, thought Fenrir – things were bad now, a _real_ sort of bad, not the hypothetical bad, not what they _feared_ would happen to one of them. For now it had actually happened, and as it turned out, they couldn't support each other as much as they had thought.

"Don't waste your breath," said Fenrir. "I'm going home."

"What about your stuff?" said Wayne in a small voice.

Fenrir gave a barking laugh. "Keep it. I don't care."

He turned and strode away. His footsteps sounded odd in the almost-empty corridor – a soft thudding that felt out-of-place surrounded by the sharp clacking of shoes. Fenrir wondered how he'd ever felt at home at the Ministry – it was a filthy place, filled with wizards too stupid to see beyond the end of their own noses and werewolves who were just as bad. Whatever they had been fighting for was out of reach. Werewolves working with wizards would never be able to achieve equality, because that wasn't what the wizards wanted. _Equality_. Fenrir bit back a growl. _There's no such thing._

The werewolves were just dogs to the wizards – amusing, but dirty, and stupid. They were never going to be on equal footing because the wizards just didn't allow it and the werewolves were starting to think the same way. Thinking over how his so-called 'friends' had acted in his office made the bile rise in Fenrir's throat. _Their attitude._ They had treated him like he was an animal too – it wasn't anything to do with _him_, though, he was sure of it – it was simply that they'd spent too long in the company of wizards, and had gotten used to that sort of treatment, expected it.

He was thinking these bitter thoughts all the way out of the Ministry. As he emerged into the bright sunlight, he squinted, sighed angrily, and began the trek to retrieve his wand. This was cut sort, however, ten minutes later, by Walden, who came striding up the street towards him.

Fenrir growled an oath and turned in the other direction, but Walden called out to him.

"I've got your wand."

Fenrir froze. "What?"

"I said, I've got your wand."

"I heard what you said, I just don't understand why. Give it to me." Fenrir snatched the wand from Walden's loose grasp. "What are you playing at?"

Walden shrugged. "Just thought you should have it. I asked where you'd gone last night, and…" Fenrir looked at him curiously. "Anyway, there it is."

"Why did you bring it to me?" asked Fenrir. "Do you want to duel with me? Because, Walden, I will kill you."

"I don't want to duel," said Walden. "I just… You'd have to walk all the way to get it."

"Have you done something to it?" Fenrir held the wand up to the sun and examined it. It looked battered and unhappy – exactly the state he'd left it in.

"No, I haven't. Look, you've just lost your job, you're an old friend—"

Fenrir snorted. "You won't give me the time of day for two years and all of sudden we're friends again?"

"I said an old friend," said Walden flatly. "It doesn't mean we're friends now."

"Of course not. Who'd want to be friends with a werewolf?"

"You have a real chip on your shoulder about that, don't you?"

"You would, too, if it was you."

"Well, get over it. You should learn to control it."

"Con—Control it?" Fenrir spluttered. "Walden—Shut up."

Walden shrugged. "I'm just saying—"

"Well, don't. Stop pushing me. I've got a nasty temper, apparently, in case you've forgotten."

"Maybe I just want to see how far you'll go."

"What?"

"Will you follow up on your threat?"

"To kill you? Or bite you?"

"Either."

"Watch yourself, or I might."

Walden's lips tightened, and he and Fenrir stared at each other for a few very tense moments. Then Walden shrugged, and said, "I don't think you will. But if you ever decide to, get back to me." And then he turned and disappeared with a _pop_.

Fenrir's lip curled as he, too, Disapparated.

/

The next month was possibly the worst of Fenrir's life. It was the first time he had ever been completely excluded, completely alone. It was the first time he had never had someone there to talk to. Even when he'd found out he was a werewolf, it wasn't as bad as this. Even when he'd killed the hiker. Even when he'd bitten the Muggle girl. There had been other werewolves then, others there to talk to, to understand what he was going through. But now he had no-one. He had no money, and nothing to aim for.

He gave up attempting to excuse himself for what he had done. Sitting in his empty, silent house, he was alone with his thoughts, and he kept running over his hazy memories of the full moon.

He could remember the chase. He could remember catching the scent of the man. He could remember how it had filled his nostrils, invaded his lungs. It had been putrid, but beautiful at the same time. It was the smell of prey.

The young boy had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, Fenrir tried to reason, but the more he thought about it, the more he blamed himself. It was so very wrong of _him_ to have been there, especially when he knew he should have been locked up. And the most disturbing part of Fenrir's memories was the taste of the blood in his mouth, the taste of the boy's skin and flesh. The human part of him had gagged, but the wolf had cried out for more. It made Fenrir sick to think about it.

Yet, despite the vile nature of what he was, Fenrir couldn't help thinking that it was better that he knew. It was better that he didn't go on a murderous rampage without a care in the world. It was better that he could at least _see_ what was going on. This other self of his was not another being at all, but rather, another side of him: his anger and his frustration and his animal urges, manifesting themselves physically. Fenrir didn't want to be absent for that. Although it was painful and revolting, not knowing was worse.

So he began drinking heavily. He didn't care that most nights he was too drunk to see straight; all he cared about was the coming full moon, because then, he knew, he would be able to see more clearly than he ever had before.

The very little money he had left went on drink. Quickly, his house turned from the cosy little dwelling it had become into a den of squalor. Empty bottles littered the floor. Fenrir neither knew nor cared where half of the dirt and rubbish came from. All he cared about was remembering the wolf – or was it forgetting his humanity? He wasn't quite sure any more. All he knew was that he hated himself, both of his selves, but more than that, he hated the wizards. The wizards who had brought this on him, the wizards who had put him in this position.

_Werewolves are better_, he thought one night, when he was still capable of coherent thought. _We're not like them. They're the real monsters here._ His thoughts were vague, and of the nature that werewolves were more accepting, and that it was the wizard's prejudices that made them monsters rather than the werewolves' bestiality, but his train of thought had gotten away from him.

And then it happened. One night, drunk though he was, he could sense the full moon rising. It began this time as a soft prickle on the back of his neck. The hairs stood upright, alert, as though preparing for what was coming. Preparing to sprout thicker, and fuller. Fenrir choked out a laugh when he felt it. He'd been preparing for this for a month, and now the time had finally come. The burn on his shoulder itched and tingled.

He stood up, for he had been sitting on his bottom stair. He swayed slightly on the spot, his blood pounding in his ears. In front of him, the floor was stained with vomit and various unidentified dirt. He stumbled forwards. He had an aching pain in the pit of his stomach, something that nagged and felt like hunger. His heart pumped faster, the blood pounding harder. He needed to be outside. He felt trapped within the walls.

Clumsily, he reached out a hand to twist the doorknob. The door swung open and he stepped into the street. The cold night air hit him like a smack in the face, sobering him slightly, but not enough. Not enough to make him realise that he would be a bystander. That no matter how much alcohol he consumed, he would never be able to control the wolf. He would only be able to watch.

He strode down the street, feeling oddly confident about something, attempting to whistle and swinging his bottle of Firewhiskey. The evening was just beginning to turn dark; dusk was slowly fading to night. A few stars already twinkled in the sky, mostly obscured by clouds, and the Muggle streetlights had already turned on, casting an eerie orange glow over the streets. Fenrir could hear one or two voices in the distance. They sounded young, excited… He didn't know why, but he felt drawn to them. He altered his course, heading in the direction of the shouts.

/

The children were oblivious to any dangers. They were within sight of their house, within the distance they'd been told to stay. They'd been warned, of course, about the danger of talking to strangers, and they knew that the streets were dodgy at night. But they were in a play park, and they were in the middle of a game, and there was no school tomorrow, so they didn't realise when it began to get dark. The streetlights were on, after all, and Tommy was turning eight next week – quite old enough to be looking after himself.

The park was shrouded in darkness, punctured only by the glow of the orange light. It cast strange, spindly shadows from the climbing frame on the wood chipping. The children were too absorbed in their game to notice the time flying by, but they noticed when a stranger entered their park.

The front gate opened with a squeak. The children looked over to where a man stood, in a long, black coat. The gate only came up to his waist, and he was clutching a glass bottle in one hand, scratching his chin with the other. His chin was covered in thick stubble, not enough to qualify as a beard. His hair had no style to it; it was shapeless and lifeless, hanging in limp curls around his ears. The man was the kind of man Tommy's mother had told him about – the kind she'd told him to stay away from. He was No Good – the scruffy, lazy sort.

"Hi, kids," he rasped. The children said nothing. They had fallen silent. The game had ended. "Don't… Don't stop on account of me," mumbled the man. "I'm just out for a stroll," he slurred. "You keep playing your game, you… you – ARGH!"

The bottle fell to the ground with an anticlimactic clunk as the man clutched frantically at his stomach with nails that looked like claws, keeling over, crippled with pain. The children stared in a mixture of awe and fright.

The man screamed, and he kept screaming. None of the children could move. They were frozen to the spot, staring at the stranger.

/

Fenrir awoke with blood on his hands, and in his mouth. He couldn't even be bothered to gag.

The wolf had found its prey last night. It had sought it out even before the change. Fenrir had watched as it had slaughtered the children. He desperately wished it wasn't true – a nightmare, perhaps – but the horrible metallic taste in his mouth confirmed what he had done.

He didn't even have the energy left in him to weep.

He regretted his decision. _Never again_, he swore to himself, as he finally managed to prop himself up on his elbows and vomit. He was pathetic, he knew it, a horrible excuse for a human being and an even worse excuse for a werewolf. He didn't know what he wanted anymore. He was simultaneously disgusted by both his forms. He had no idea what to do next. How could he live a normal human life when this was what it all came down to in the end? But how could he be a wolf, when he was so sickened by the creature's very existence?

"Are you quite finished?" said a voice. Fenrir started, and looked up, his eyes aching in the morning light.

Walden was standing over him, holding a bundle of robes.

"W-walden? How are you—What did you—"

"Just get dressed," said Walden, sounding revolted, but there was something in his voice Fenrir couldn't place. He tossed the robe to Fenrir. "My, Lestrange _will _be pleased to hear about this."


	8. Blood Moon Again

**Chapter Eight**

**Blood Moon Again**

"What?" Fenrir's breath caught in his throat. "What are you doing here?" he repeated. "What… What's Lestrange got to do with this?"

Walden snorted. "Get dressed and I'll tell you. I'm going to stand behind this tree."

He turned and strode away, and Fenrir, clutching his pounding head, reached for the robe. Clumsily, he pulled it on, wrapping it around himself and appreciating its warmth. He wiped the blood and spit dripping from his chin with a shaking hand. "Why are you here?" he asked Walden again, his voice scratching the walls of his throat. "What are you doing? Why did you bring me this? How did you know where I was?"

"Shut up for a minute," said Walden, emerging from behind the tree. "I followed you, alright?"

"Wha—Why?"

"Because I thought you'd do something stupid like this and I wanted to make sure you didn't get caught."

Fenrir frowned. His eyebrows knitted together, a deep crease appearing in his forehead. He didn't know what to think. "But why…?" _Why were you thinking about me? Why do you care? What do you want fromme?_

Walden sighed. "Just… take the robe for now, okay? I'll explain about… everything… but later."

"Huh? What do you mean, later? If you're here now, why is there something you can't tell me?" Fenrir couldn't fathom the notion that there was anything that was of any more importance than the here and the now. It had been so long since he'd thought about his future, merely surviving day to day, that it was a foreign concept to him.

"Trust me," said Walden. "I'm not the best person to talk about this. You remember Lestrange?"

"Of course I do." How could anyone forget one of the boys they'd shared a dormitory with for seven years?

"Well, he and I are trying to organise a sort of get-together. For the five of us. From school," he added for clarification.

"I gathered."

"Yes. We were thinking next week, at the Kneazle and Niffler."

"The _what_?"

"It's a pub. Near Gravesend in Kent."

"Oh."

"At about eight o'clock."

"Oh. Okay." Fenrir's hand was still clutching the front of his robes. He stared at the ground, thinking hard. Why did Walden have to tell him this right now? And why did his old schoolmates want to meet up_now_, of all times? This was the lowest point of his life so far, even worse than his awkward teenage years. He wanted so say this to Walden, to make a joke, but he couldn't get the words together, so instead, he said, "How is Lestrange, anyway? And—"

Walden shook his head. "Wednesday," he said. "I'll talk to you on Wednesday. I'm not standing around here, up to my knees in dirt." He stared at Fenrir for another moment, and Fenrir stared back. When it was established that neither of the men had anything more to say, Walden gave him a brusque nod and disappeared with a pop. Fenrir narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. _Why do people keep doingthat?_ he thought bitterly. Then he Disapparated, too, back to his house, because there really was no point in just standing around.

/

Fenrir willed the following week to pass quickly. Although he was initially annoyed at Walden for his erratic behaviour and infuriating lack of information, he soon came to realise that he was looking forward to seeing his old friends again. He hadn't written to or been written to by any of them since they had left, although they'd said they'd keep in touch – they were young men, after all, and disorganised in the extreme.

Having nothing to do made each day seem to last a week in itself. Looking forward to meeting people who had last seen him with all his prospects in front of him, he devoted all his time to improving his appearance. Due to a lack of sufficient monetary resources, he wasn't able to provide himself with adequate nutrition, but he did make sure to treat all the wounds he could and trim his hair and nails.

He hummed to himself as he stood in front of the mirror, whittling his stubble into a neat little strip. His friends, he was sure, would be impressed with his beard-growing skills. He guessed he would probably have the best facial hair of all of them, having an advantage in that area.

He spent the rest of the week grooming himself, making sure his hair was just right and his robes were clean. He hadn't been so concerned with his appearance in his entire life, but he felt as though he was being given an opportunity to make a second first impression, and that was a very rare something.

It was when combing his hair that he noticed, much to his chagrin, that the tips of his ears were sticking out from under it. Frowning, he tried to rearrange the style, blaming his shoddy shearing skills, but the fact was that his ears were much longer and pointer than they had ever been before. He willed his hair to grow faster, to cover up the unsightly protrusions.

/

When Wednesday evening finally arrived – a dull, chilly evening with few stars and nothing good on the wireless – Fenrir set off for Gravesend in Kent. He'd gotten directions to the pub from the bartender at the Hippogriff's Head, who hadn't looked at all pleased with his asking.

The door to the pub was tiny and barely noticeable in the weak light. Walls of the Muggle buildings loomed all around it, obscuring it almost completely in shadow. Fenrir had wandered down backstreets and alleys for about half an hour before he found it. Something about the setting felt off. There was no sign on the door, nothing that declared it as a place for social get-togethers. The shadows curling around it seemed to be warning intruders off – on the whole, it seemed to be a place that did not want to be found.

Fenrir first spotted the door from the end of a street. Squinting at it was like looking through a tunnel, or from the bottom of a well. There were no streetlights here in the winding back roads and the night was beginning to fall fast. "_Lumos_," Fenrir muttered, holding his wand in front of him. The light it cast was not enough to dispel the shadows; if anything, it seemed to force them into new formations.

There was a sudden rustling of robes and before Fenrir could react, a hand shot out and grabbed the back of his neck. He screeched, whipping around; there was a scuffling of boots and a hand was cupped over his mouth. The beam of the wand flickered all over the walls as Fenrir struggled against the grip of someone else's arms, scrabbling fiercely at the robes with his now too-short nails.

"Calm down, now, there's a good boy," croaked a voice. It sounded mildly amused, somewhat familiar, and very Welsh. Fenrir stopped struggling immediately.

"Gus?"

"That's right." The arms around him loosened and Fenrir turned, casting the light of his wand into the greasy, pockmarked, sneering face of Augustus Rookwood.

"Gus, you greasy bastard, what the hell d'you think you're playing at? I nearly hexed you half to death!"

"Was that when you were screaming like a little girl or was it when your wand was flailing about in the air?"

Fenrir growled, but his lips curled into a grin. "You've taken to hanging around dark alleys, now, have you? Springing out on unsuspecting passers-by?"

"Just you, you're a special case," said Augustus. "Wanted to make sure you found the place alright. There it is," he added unhelpfully, pointing to the door.

"Obviously I found it, as I am now here."

"Alright, well maybe I just wanted to make you piss yourself. Did I manage it?"

"Ha! You realise I'm going to have to get you back for this."

"Fenrir, the day you manage to pull one over on me will be the day the Ministry announces the mass emancipation of house-elves." They began to walk towards the pub. "Though from what I've heard, things might be changing at the Ministry soon enough."

"What do you mean?" Fenrir asked.

"Haven't you looked at a paper in the last three weeks?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures's died."

"Oh, God, that's awfu—Wait, you mean Mr Hanson? Walden's boss?" Augustus grunted. They'd reached the door of the pub, and were standing on the step in front. "Is Walden okay?"

"I'm sure he is. 'Snot him that's died, is it? I mean, he's been laid off, but he managed to get me into a job there first, so at least one of us is doing alright."

"How did it—?"

"Nasty accident, no-one quite knows how it came about." Augustus cut across him, and there was something odd about the tone of voice he used, something that sounded to Fenrir a bit rehearsed, as though he'd been told what to say. Fenrir frowned. "Probably slipped on something. You wanna get inside?" He pushed the door, which opened with a hackneyed creaking sound.

The pub was small but crowded, filled mostly with men and their chatter. Cigarette smoke curled in the air and music played quietly from behind the bar. Augustus began to walk towards the end of the room, which looked darker than the front, where a fire crackled, and the silhouettes of three men could be seen.

"How have you been, Gus?" asked Fenrir, as he followed him across the pub.

"Not bad, not bad," said Augustus. "How have you been, alright?"

Fenrir gave a small cough. "Not bad," he said, self-consciously flattening his hair over his ear. Augustus looked at him suspiciously.

As they approached the table by the fire, one of the men – and Fenrir could see now that it was Walden – rose to greet them. He was sitting with two other men. One gave him a wink. Fair-haired and baby-faced, Frederick Grimshaw looked exactly as Fenrir remembered him from school. The other looked nothing like Fenrir remembered, and if he hadn't been expecting to see him, he was doubtful he would have realised who it was.

In their schooldays, Rabastan Lestrange had been slender, with dark auburn hair that fell past his shoulders and almost-black eyes that betrayed no emotion. He'd always been the level-headed one of their group, calm and collected, and the other boys respected him in a way they didn't respect any of their other peers. Now, though, he was hunched into a corner staring at a nearly-full glass of wine, his cheeks gaunt and dark circles under his eyes. He looked unhealthily thin, and his hair seemed to have been chopped off, leaving nothing but uneven tufts. _Blimey, he looks worse than I do._

They took their seats at the table amidst various greetings. Walden roared for drinks to be brought over, and the bar staff obliged right away, though looking none too happy about it.

"Alright, Lestrange, what's got into you?" said Augustus.

Lestrange looked up from his glass, his eyes flickering about the room before coming to rest on Augustus.

"Lestrange has been telling me about a new movement," said Walden, before Lestrange could open his mouth.

"Oh?" Frederick raised an eyebrow. Fenrir tilted his head.

"Yes. It's called – well, maybe you should tell them, Lestrange." Walden's words seemed to be tumbling out of his mouth, almost before they had the chance to form properly. He sounded excited, eager to get on with something. His animated behaviour seemed out of character, and looked odd beside Lestrange, who seemed to have zoned out. "Lestrange." Walden elbowed him in the side, and he blinked.

"What?" he said vaguely.

"Are you going to tell them about the Death Eaters?"

"The _what_?" said Fenrir.

"The Death Eaters?" said Frederick.

"Yeah, tell us about the Death Eaters," said Augustus.

Looking uncomfortably aware that the entire table was looking at him expectantly, Lestrange cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. His eye gave a small twitch, as though he were fighting something, and he began, "A friend of my father's from school has founded an organisation." He sounded as though he were giving a speech he had rehearsed many times. "He has come to realise that Muggles are a growing threat to our society. He has decided that we need to take action against this before the magical world we have worked so hard to create for ourselves is destroyed forever. He has called this organisation the Death Eaters."

"Why the _Death Eaters_?" asked Augustus.

"Don't interrupt," said Walden, who was staring at Lestrange with a sort of crazed adoration on his face. Fenrir felt some hairs on the back of his neck prickle. However, Lestrange kept talking as though he had heard neither of them.

"The aim of the Death Eaters is to purify the wizarding race, and to unlock the secret to immortality."

"Hence, Death _Eaters_," said Walden.

"Sounds good," nodded Asugustus. "Okay, where can I sign up?"

"Wait, wait, wait a minute," said Frederick. "I want to know more about it. Does it have some kind of healthcare plan?" He chuckled, bringing his bottle of beer to his lips.

"No," said Lestrange, in a softer voice, and he no longer sounded rehearsed. "There's a lot of… hands-on work involved. It can get quite… messy."

Walden snorted.

"What sort of messy?" asked Fenrir, frowning. Augustus chuckled.

"He means killing people off, don't you, Wally?"

"Huh?" Frederick set his bottle back on the table with a clunk. There was a tense silence.

"Oh, come on," said Augustus, looking at Frederick disbelievingly. "_Purifying the race_ and all that?"

Frederick spluttered. "You can't—You don't mean—"

"Did you read about the head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in the _Prophet_?" asked Walden. When no-one answered him, he said, very calmly, "That was me."

"_What_?" Fenrir gaped at him. "But—Mr Hanson! You didn't—You can't've—"

"Oh, yes, I did Fenrir, and do you know what? It felt like _power_. And I liked it."

Fenrir shook his head. It felt as though the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. "But—but—No—You're not a murderer. That's… that's sick."

"Sick like you killing and eating those five kids last month?"

Fenrir wasn't even aware that he had stood up. All he knew was that he was on his feet and had crossed the table and was clutching Walden by the throat. "Say. That. Again."

Walden chuckled. "Put me down, Fenrir, you're causing a scene."

Fenrir glanced over his shoulder. His friends were staring at him, a mix of shock a horror on their faces, and it felt as though icy fingers were gripping his throat and his stomach. How much had they discerned from what Walden had said? Did they know what he'd done? And was Walden telling the truth?

Frederick shook his head. "This is sick," he said. "You're sick, the lot of you." Standing up, he backed slowly away from the table, then turned and hurried to the door. The others watched in silence. Fenrir turned back to Walden, and met his eyes. Walden was grinning; the expression on his face was nothing sort of maniacal.

"You're insane," spluttered Fenrir. He dropped Walden, retracted his hand, and made to follow Frederick, but Walden bellowed, "WAIT."

Involuntarily – automatically, almost – Fenrir froze. He turned slowly to face Walden again. "I swear—" he began.

"No need for that," said Walden, waving a hand in the air, almost as though he had forgotten the feeling of Fenrir's fingernails digging into his throat a moment before. "Come and sit down. Have a drink. You will stay," he added, taking in the bemused expression on Fenrir's face. "You'll stay because you're lonely, and because you're guilty, and because you want to know how to make it go away. If you can tell me I'm wrong about that, I'll let you go without making a fuss." Fenrir said nothing, thinking furiously.

"Am I wrong?" Walden asked.

Hesitantly, and against his better judgement, Fenrir took a seat.

/

The four men spent many nights at the Kneazle and Niffler in the coming months. They drank, and played cards, and smoked (Fenrir had never smoked before in his life and it was not an entirely pleasant experience, but all his friends were doing it, so he soon got used to it). No further mention was made of Frederick Grimshaw.

Fenrir couldn't help noticing erratic swings in Lestrange's mood, but no-one else mentioned anything about it, which made Fenrir feel he must be imagining things. Sometimes Lestrange would be like he was on the night of their reunion, sullen and dazed, but sometimes he would be twitchy and nervous, looking around himself constantly as though he was trying to find a way out.

Walden and Lestrange furnished Fenrir and Augustus with more details about the Death Eaters. "You know how werewolves are treated?" said Walden to Fenrir. "That's how Muggles see us."

"They think we're dogs," he'd say.

"They're the dogs," Lestrange would interject.

"Why should we be ashamed of our magic?"

"They'd kill us all if we gave them half the chance."

"And they want to infect our world as well."

"They're like slugs. Leeches. They latch onto you and drain everything from you – all your secrets and knowledge and then they kill you."

"Why is society like this?"

"We need to do something to fix it."

"We need to make Muggles see that we're not ashamed."

"We're more powerful than they are," Augustus would add, as they met up more and more often.

"If we don't do something quick, there's going to be an invasion."

"They'll wipe us out."

"Magical blood will die out."

"The only wizards left will be Muggles who've stolen it from us."

"They need to be shown," Fenrir heard himself say, and all the voices began to meld into one, and who was saying what wasn't important any more, because their views were all the same: Protect the magical blood. Stand against the Muggles. Fight.

"…like slugs…"

"…pathetic little race…"

"…no meaning to their existence…"

"…sacrifices…"

"…for the greater good…"

"—and you see, there's no need to feel guilty," Walden told Fenrir one night, after several drinks, when Fenrir's world was swimming in front of him. "What you have is _power_."

And Fenrir believed him.

/

"I love this song," Augustus said, as he dealt the cards for another of their poker games. "Oh, hang on, wait, wait a minute. Let me show you a magic trick. Okay." He took out his wand and summoned the cards back to him.

"You bastard, I had all four aces. This song is ancient."

"You're not supposed to tell me what you had, you twat. And I don't care."

"What is the song?" asked Lestrange, in such a soft voice that only Fenrir, who was sitting beside him, heard. He cocked his head, listening, and in an instant he wished he hadn't. He wished he'd ignored Lestrange like the other two men had, but instead, their laughter faded into the background, and Lestrange's elbow in the ribs had no effect, for all of Fenrir's world seemed to have been sucked into the song that was playing on the wireless.

"It's _Blood Moon_, by the Screamin' Banshees, I think," he dimly heard Augustus say from very far away.

"Dragon's Tale." The words seemed to come from his mouth, but he didn't realise he'd said it.

"What?"

"It's by Dragon's Tale," he heard himself say, louder this time.

"Oh," said Augustus. "Well, there you go then. Pick a card, MacNair."

Walden hmm-ed and ha-ed over his decision, making a spectacle out of doing so, while Augustus grew more and more irate. They began to hurl half-formed insults at each other while Fenrir sat paralysed, his fingernails digging unnoticed into the palms of his hands. He tried with all he could to block out the lyrics and the haunting music of the song… the _song_… The song that had been playing when—

"Are you alright?" a voice asked in his ear. He took a moment to pull himself from the mental pit, and answered mindlessly, "I'm fine," his eyes unmoving.

"You're not. You're bleeding," said Lestrange. Gently, he took hold of Fenrir's hand and pulled his fingers out of their fist. Looking down, Fenrir was shocked to see the bloody ruts in his skin and the red-tinged nails.

"Thank you," he muttered.

"Are you two going to play poker or just sit there holding hands all evening?" Augustus demanded.

"Sit here holding hands, definitely," said Lestrange, sneering. "No, I'm sick of this place. I'm heading out."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know and I don't care, but I'm sure I'll find somewhere. Are any of you thinking of tagging along? Fenrir?"

"God, no," said Walden. "Fen, don't go with him, he goes to Muggle bars."

"Do you?" Augustus raised his eyebrows very high indeed. "Why d'you do that? Why d'you mix with that scum?"

"Because I think they're funny," said Lestrange. "Fenrir, get up, you're coming with me."

Fenrir stood up automatically – seven years of training had taught him not do disobey Lestrange's orders. The other two ooh-ed and jeered, but they didn't try and stop them leaving. Fenrir didn't care what they thought, though – he didn't care at the moment about mixing with Muggles, all he cared about was not being in the same room as that song – and Muggle bars didn't play that song…

Outside, they walked along in the darkness, the wind whipping the rain all around them. "I thought you needed to get out of there," Lestrange said. "You looked a bit pale. I know it can be overwhelming at times. Fenrir, the boys—"

But just at that moment footsteps came pounding up to them, and Walden and Augustus arrived.

"We've decided to join you," said Walden.

"You don't _really_ go to Muggle bars, do you?" said Augustus.

"Anything's got to be better than hanging around that old dump," said Walden.

"Fenrir's looking a bit peaky."

"It's his time of the month."

"Is it, Fen?"

Fenrir grunted. He was still half in a daze, his mind still lurking at the Kneazle and Niffler. What did Walden mean? Oh, yes, the full moon, that was it. But he wanted another song, any song, to wash away the echoes of that old, horrible tune.

/

The bar they ended up in was vibrating with the Muggle music. It was just as generic as the song on the wireless but it didn't sound anything like it, and by the time he was on his fifth drink Fenrir wasn't sure why he cared about the music any more.

"She's nice, isn't she?" said Walden, leaning on the bar beside him.

"What?" asked Fenrir, turning. If Walden was talking about a particular girl, Fenrir could not see her, for the entire room was filled with twisting bodies.

"That one over there. In the red dress." Walden pointed, and for a moment Fenrir saw a red flicker – the hem of a dress – through the crowd, pale legs in high heels beneath it. He grunted. "I know she's a Muggle and everything, but I think I could get over that." Fenrir grunted again. "Tell you what, you can have her."

"What?"

"You look like you need something to cheer you up. But if you don't hurry, Augustus is going to get there first." Walden's words were barely audible above the music. He jerked his thumb towards the dance floor, where Augustus was worming his way into the midst of a gaggle of girls. Lestrange was nowhere to be seen. "Well, d'you want her or not, or are you just going to stand there staring like a gormless idiot?"

Fenrir shook his head. He didn't _really_ want the girl, but… Walden had a point. From what he'd seen of the girl, she _did_ look nice, and… he had been so lonely for so long… Any attempt he'd made to form a relationship had been cut off by the gnawing guilt inside him… But that was… that was gone now. At least, Fenrir had found a way to deal with it, because Muggles didn't really matter… But still… Malvina…_No_, he thought fiercely. _No._ _Not now._

So he left Walden at the bar, and went to the dance floor. The girl they'd spotted was almost indistinguishable within the mass of writhing bodies, but eventually Fenrir spotted her red dress, and made his way over, elbowing a shorter man out of the way. The girl looked to the man who'd been cast aside, and then at Fenrir as he stood in front of her, and laughed.

"You're keen, aren't you?"

"Ever so." He flashed her a smile, hoping his teeth weren't too yellow. But the multi-coloured flashing lights cast strange shadows onto the faces and the bodies of the strangers, making it difficult to see how they really looked. Or perhaps it was just the effect of the alcohol. The girl laughed again, and they danced together, her heels clicking on the floor and her nails digging into his arms.

And then, as the song ended, he felt his stomach crunch. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. "I can't—" he mumbled. "Not now…"

"What's that?" asked the girl, who was panting slightly.

"I'll be back in a minute," said Fenrir, and turned and stumbled away, through the oblivious crowd, feeling his way across the darkened walls, until he reached a door. He tripped through it, found it was a bathroom, and stumbled to the sink, clutching the cold white edges. "Not here," he mumbled to himself. "Not now." And then he vomited, and a stall door behind him creaked open. He heard a woman's voice shriek.

"What are you doing in here? This is the ladies'!"

"I know," Fenrir mumbled, the contents of his stomach still dribbling from his lips. "I'll go… in a second. I just need to…"

He could see the woman in the mirror, looking at him in disgust, shaking her head. Her nose was wrinkled.

"I'm calling security."

Fenrir ignored her, and she turned and marched from the room, leaving him crouched over the basins. _Stupid, tiny little things._ He reached out a hand, which was shaking, and ran the water. It was so cool, such a relief. He rinsed his mouth and splashed it onto his face. _Don't do it_, he willed himself. _Not here. Not now._ He stared at himself in the mirror, breathing heavily, focusing on only the sound of his heartbeat. He knew it was stupid of him to have come out tonight of all nights, but he knew there had been a reason… Oh, yes. The song.

The song.

His heartbeat slowed eventually, and he fancied the pain lessened. He could feel no hair prickling, no unwelcome growth of nails. But he couldn't hold it back forever. He would have enough time, however – just enough time to get to a safe place, a place where Lestrange and Walden and Augustus were not.

So he pulled himself together, and headed for the door. But with his hand resting on the handle, he paused. Something in the mirror had not been quite right. Something was different, something was very wrong. But he told himself not to be stupid, and that it had been a trick of the too-bright lights. He did not go back to check, because he did not want to believe that what he had thought he had seen was true. His eyes could not be yellow. They could not be.

Beyond the crowd of dancing people, a red dress could Fenrir's eye. It belonged to the girl – his girl – and she was leaving. Scowling, Fenrir stalked past the bar, where Lestrange was sitting with two glasses. He started to say something, but Fenrir ignored him, his eyes focused on the now-closed doors the red blur had just disappeared through.

He followed, and saw her in the street, a hundred feet ahead of him, wobbling along in heels that looked too high. He quickened his pace, and reached her eventually. On hearing him approach, she turned, and a grin spread across her face. "There you are! Thought you'd forgotten about me!"

"No," said Fenrir. "You got a light?" he asked, as something clawed at his throat.

"Nah, sorry," said the girl. "I don't do that, me. Can't stand the smell."

"Oh."

"You wanna come back with me?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You comin' back with me? I'm stayin' with my aunt, but she's out, so we should be alright. We'll have the house to ourselves, no-one to hear us, you know what I mean?"

"You mean, do I want to… spend the night with you?"

She rolled her eyes. "What d'you think I mean? Look, d'you want to or not? I'm not gonna waste my time tryin' to persuade you. Not worth it, love. There are a million guys out there I could choose instead, but you're right here, aren't you? You're not the best lookin' of the bunch, but your hair's a bit like Jim Morrison's, so I guess you'll do."

Fenrir grunted. He didn't know who Jim Morrison was, or why the girl wanted to take him home, but he did know that he should say no, and that the squeezing sensation inside of him was getting tighter. He stared at the girl hard. He wasn't sure if he liked her or not. He didn't think she was pretty. Her hair was the sort of blonde that came from potions and chemicals, and it was plastered to her forehead by sweat. Her mouth was too big, and too red, and her dress clung to her too tightly. She was too angular and had too-long limbs, but in spite of that, Fenrir wanted her more than he'd wanted anyone in his life, and the song was echoing too loudly in his mind for him to think straight.

"Where does your aunt live?"

/

In the green bedroom, the girl took off her shoes while Fenrir sat on the edge of the bed. His fingernails punctured the fabric, but she didn't seem to notice. She was talking about something Fenrir did not care for at all, something about her friend called Julie and a man called Tony and a garden rake.

"Shut up," he said, standing and grabbing her by the shoulders, forcing his mouth onto hers. He felt he must have been being too rough, but he didn't care and she certainly didn't seem to.

"Mm, controllin'," she said, as he released her. "I like it." She took him by the hand and led him to the bed. Without waiting for an invitation, Fenrir grabbed her around the waist with one hand, and began to stroke her thigh with the other, kissing her all the while.

Then he felt her hands on his chest, pushing him away. "Hang on," she said, looking down dubiously. "What's happenin' to your hand? Ugh, that's disgustin'!"

And Fenrir looked down, and realised that hair was beginning to sprout on the back of his hand. "That's nothing," he murmured. "Come here."

"No." She stood up. "Nah, that's not right." She backed away, shaking her head.

"I said," said Fenrir, getting up and advancing on her, "it's nothing. So get back on the bed, and do what you promised."

She swallowed; he was inches away from her now, and he was between her and the door. She opened her mouth, as though she was trying to say something, but the words were lost before they had time to form. Fenrir's breath was at her throat, and his teeth were bared, and his hands, which were on the wall on either side of her, were becoming horribly misshapen. And then Fenrir tried to say something, too, but his words were lost as well. They came out as a snarl, and her words came out as a scream – but her aunt was not home, and there was no-one to hear them.


	9. Wolfsbane

**Chapter Nine**

**Wolfsbane**

The house in Kent lay quiet and still. As the morning dawned, the neighbours began their days, taking their dogs for walks, leaving for work, picking up the paper and collecting the milk. It was a slightly frosty morning, and birds twittered sweetly in the trees. There was nothing to suggest that there was anything unusual about Number Sixteen. The curtains stayed drawn, but as the owner of the property was on holiday this hardly seemed a thing to comment on.

Inside the house, however, the second best bedroom was looking rather the worse for wear. Any onlooker would surely have been shocked. The bedspread lay in tatters. The carpet had been ripped to shreds. One of the curtains had been wrenched from its hooks and the other was in ribbons.

And the entire room splattered with a thick brown substance that was beginning to stink. It was everywhere: it was soaking into the remnants of the carpet and bedclothes, smeared across the walls, staining the wardrobe doors. The door to the bedroom lay askew, its hinges shattered. Across the polished wood were four very long gashes, ragged at the edges and going through almost to the other side. (An investigating police officer would later say these were caused by a dagger of some kind, because the investigating police officer would have risked the contempt of his colleagues if he had written in his report his gut feeling: that these marks were caused by very large claws.)

The mattress lay askew in the middle of the floor, half of it scattered across the room. In the middle of the mattress a large hole had been dug out, and in the middle of the hole Fenrir sat with his knees drawn up to his chin. He, too, was covered in the girl's blood. It was on his skin, in his hair, under his nails, under his tongue, and bits of her flesh were between his teeth. _She_ was everywhere: parts of her here, parts of her there, and she was mutilated beyond recognition.

Fenrir saw what he had done, and he laughed. He knew now what it was like to be powerful, and it was intoxicating. Whether it felt _good_ or not didn't bother him; he was too overwhelmed by the immensity of his actions. He'd done something huge. He had made a difference. He finally realised what Walden had been talking about.

His wand was lying discarded under the wardrobe. Still laughing, drunk on power, he reached for it, his fingernails making a horrible scratching sound as they brushed against the carpet. Taking one final look at the scene before him, Fenrir smiled to himself, and Disapparated.

/

He went to Walden's house later in the day, wearing his now best robes (they were really his seventh-best pair of robes, or his eighth-best – he had lost count). Walden welcomed him into the sitting-room with open arms and a wide grin.

Fenrir shook as he told Walden what had happened last night – what he remembered of it.

"I can't explain it, Walden. It was just this – this _rush_, and – and—"

"I know," said Walden, and he nodded almost serenely. He poured Fenrir a drink, and they toasted.

"To power," said Walden, and Fenrir echoed him. "To the Death Eaters!"

/

It seemed that Walden's house was a popular rallying point for the Death Eaters. Fenrir stayed with him for a few days, sleeping on the sofa, not wanting to return to another night at home alone. Every day several others would turn up and hold whispered conversations behind closed doors. Fenrir didn't know who most of these men where, but he found himself feeling a little miffed by the fact that Walden did not attempt to discourage them from holding their conversations out of Fenrir's earshot. He seemed just as eager to keep whatever it was they were saying from Fenrir, too, and acted as though he knew nothing about it.

One day, Lestrange visited, and Walden took him away, too, into the kitchen, while Fenrir was left alone, listening to the wireless. There was a witch with a powerful voice singing a ballad about love, and Fenrir flicked his wand at the dial, turning it up a little so that he wouldn't have to hear the voices in the next room. If he didn't have to hear them, he could pretend they did not exist. He sat miserably with his chin in his hands until the door opened and Walden and Lestrange returned.

"Fenrir, how are you?" asked Lestrange, turning the wireless town by hand.

"Fine, yeah," said Fenrir, looking up at him. Behind him, he heard Walden standing, very still, as though he was watching him.

"How has living with Walden been?" asked Lestrange, and a laugh crept into his voice, as though he knew what the answer was and that the answer was not good.

"Great," Fenrir lied, turning slightly to acknowledge Walden's presence. "He's been great, Walden.

"Would you like to come and stay with me?" asked Lestrange. "I'll be honest with you, Fenrir, my house is much nicer than Walden's, and I don't have all the scum of the earth traipsing in and out daily."

Walden snorted. Fenrir looked between him and Lestrange, not knowing what to say.

"I don't need to stay with anyone," he said eventually. "I have got my own house."

Walden looked uncomfortable. "But you don't have a job anymore, Fen."

Fenrir gaped at him. This was true, of course, and had been for some time, but Fenrir hadn't given it much thought. He'd had a pile of gold saved up, after all, and it had not run out yet. However, now that he came to think about it, he realised that he was probably going to find himself scrabbling for whatever he could find soon enough.

"But—but you don't, either," he said to Walden.

"I'm going to write for the _Prophet_," shrugged Walden.

"Fenrir," said Lestrange, and Fenrir snapped his head back to face him. "Come and live with me. We will have fun," he said, without much conviction.

"Yeah," said Walden. "It'll be great. Lestrange has got a new place. We can play poker on Saturdays, just the four of us, instead of in that dingy old pub."

Fenrir looked between the two of them, both urging him to agree to live with Lestrange. He didn't know if they had an ulterior motive or if they just thought it was the best plan, but he shrugged and conceded and thanked them for their hospitality.

/

"I'll teach you how to talk to girls," Walden would say, when they played poker on Saturday nights, as planned. According to Walden, he had a string of girls visiting him every week, and no two were the same. Fenrir didn't see how, because he had never deemed Walden one of his more attractive friends. But according to Walden, it was true, and Walden seemed to know a lot about a lot of things, so Fenrir believed him.

Walden did offer Fenrir tips on talking to girls ("And avoiding little 'incidents' like last time," he would laugh), though they never came in very useful, because they never seemed to go anywhere any more. All they would do was sit in Lestrange's drawing room and drink and smoke and play cards and talk about what was going on in the world.

It took Fenrir a long time to realise that his three friends all had jobs where he had none. They all had stories of their lives, and for the first few weeks, Fenrir listened, rapt, but after a while he realised he had no stories of his own to share. He spent his days exploring Lestrange's house, and the sprawling, grassy grounds outside of it, and reading books, and trying not to bore himself out of his head.

When the full moon came, Walden and Augustus arrived at the front door carrying between them a heavy leather collar and chain. Fenrir, who had been preparing to make a journey of several miles across the fields surrounding the house, looked at them in confusion when Lestrange let them in.

"Got a job for you," grinned Walden.

"I've got a feeling you're gonna like this," said Augustus. "What with what happened last time and everything."

Fenrir looked at them in confusion, furrowing his eyebrows. They hoisted the collar and chain into the hallway, and set it down with a thud in the middle of the Persian rug in the drawing room. Lestrange winced and looked away, muttering something under his breath.

"Stick your head in there," Augustus commanded, gesturing at the leather loop. "Need to see if it fits before we take it anywhere."

Fenrir picked it up. It was heavier than he'd thought it would be, and he did not understand what it was for. "What is it?" he asked.

"Collar," said Walden. "Put it on."

"Why?"

"Well," said Augustus. "You know how you do that… thing? And you turn all…" he made a snarling face, "and all?"

Fenrir nodded.

"Well, I've had a word with the Big Guy," said Augustus, taking the collar from Fenrir and slipping it over his head, "and he thinks he knows how that could come in useful."

"What do you mean?" asked Fenrir. The collar was cold and weighed down unpleasantly on his collarbones. "Who's the big guy?"

"Dark Lord," said Augustus, and Walden scowled. "The Boss. The Big Cheese. The man who runs the thing."

"Lestrange's dad's friend?" asked Fenrir.

"Yep." Augustus took hold of Fenrir's shoulders and spun him round, pulling something on the back of the collar so that it tightened. "A man full of ideas, that one. Wait 'til you see, I reckon he'll be really chuffed with you after this."

"Do you think so?" asked Fenrir hesitantly. He didn't like to think what Augustus was planning. He knew, of course, but a part of him was wishing he was wrong. He tried, he tried desperately hard, not to think about killing people and what that meant. He tried not to empathise. He tried not to think of their deaths as events in his own life, let alone of himself as the final event in their life. He didn't really want to have to do it again, despite what he'd told Walden ("You're made to do it," Walden had told them as they'd chinked glasses. "You're a killing machine." And he'd laughed).

"Of course," said Augustus. "Come along, now."

He tugged at the chain, and Fenrir was pulled forward. The edges of the leather cut into his skin and he raised his hands hastily, trying to prise it away. Augustus led him out of the house to the garden, where there was a small marble statue of a house-elf. Walden and Lestrange followed, and Walden picked up the statue.

"It's leaving at half five," he said to Fenrir, sounding bored. "You've got two minutes."

"Where are we going?" asked Fenrir, but neither of them would answer him.

"I won't lie to you, Fen, it's probably best if you don't know," said Augustus, still holding the chain. "There are going to be people who'll try and find out, and it's best if you can't tell them."

"Right," said Fenrir, beginning to feel faintly ill. _You won't remember it, anyway_, a little voice inside his head told him. _It'll be fine. Just forget about what you're supposed to be doing._

So he did. He blanked out the memory of taking the Portkey to wherever it was they were going, and he blanked out being locked alone in a room, naked and still with his collar on, waiting to transform. He blanked out waking up covered in blood again, and the rest was darkness anyway.

/

This went on for many months. Fenrir continued to live with Lestrange. His own house had probably been taken out of his name, he thought, because he did not return to it or pay rent. He did not receive any letters, or bills. In fact, no owls arrived at Lestrange's house at all. Whenever there was a message, it was always delivered by a man.

Often, Lestrange's brother and wife-to-be would turn up at his house. Rodolphus Lestrange had the same dark eyes and auburn hair as his older brother, the same high cheekbones and the same pale skin, but aside from that they looked almost nothing alike. Rodolphus was much bigger, broader and more thickset, and did not talk as much as his brother, who was often jittery and uncomfortable.

His fiancée, Bellatrix, was a tall, pale woman with wild dark hair and something in her eyes that scared Fenrir. She was almost beautiful, but she was cold and condescending, and barely spoke to Fenrir. The first time Lestrange had introduced the two, Fenrir had clumsily stuck out his hand, and Bellatrix had looked at it disdainfully.

"Is this the wolf?" she had asked.

"Yes," Lestrange had said.

"I wonder how you can have it in the house," Bellatrix had said, not looking at Fenrir, and apparently under the impression that he could not hear or understand her. "Come along, Rod, let's sit down, shall we? Rabastan, get your house-elf to pour us some wine."

"Don't mind Bellatrix," Lestrange had said to Fenrir, who was glaring at her, in a low voice. "That's just how she is. She's one of the Blacks, you know."

The Blacks were, of course, a prestigious pure-blooded family, but Fenrir found that right now he didn't care. Black or no Black, he wasn't going to have a woman talk to him like that. He didn't have anything in particular against Rodolphus, though, but the man seemed to be under Bellatrix's thumb. He would smile vaguely at Fenrir, and mutter greetings when they passed each other in the hallways, but it seemed as though he had not been given permission to remain in the same room as him for longer than necessary.

When Lestrange's family visited, Fenrir would stay in his room, and soon it became a habit to him. During the days he would explore the far-reaching grounds of the house and read whichever of the many books in the library took his fancy, but whenever Lestrange had guests over, then he was to retreat to his room, and pretend he wasn't there. The exception to this, was, of course, the regular poker games, which had decreased from weekly to monthly. The other men all seemed to be terribly busy with their lives.

The months turned into years, and Fenrir couldn't have cared less. He liked living in Lestrange's house; more often than not he was left alone, and didn't have to talk to snotty little princesses like Bellatrix Black. There was a house-elf to do whatever needed to be done, and the food it provided was rich and delicious. Fenrir got fat on a diet of fine food and wine (he told himself it was that, anyway, and not whatever he was doing on moonlit nights). He had a lot of time to himself, and he used it mostly to study Lestrange's books and teach himself a great number of new things, but a lot of the time when he was alone at night he would think about his parents, and how he missed them, and how his friends had changed.

Their meetings were still regular but every month Augustus would put him on a lead and take him to a place far away – a cellar, he thought, that he didn't recognise – and every month Augustus would treat him like a dog. That was the thing that Fenrir forced himself to hate most about the whole thing. He was willing to do the job for the Death Eaters, he was willing to offer his… 'services', as Walden called them, but he was still a man, after all. He still wanted his pride. But he supposed that meant nothing, any more, to society, so he never brought it up. He always laughed at Augustus's crude jokes, and made his own, and never stopped to let himself think about what he was getting into. Life was comfortable here.

And then one day, something changed the routine he'd grown so familiar with. Walden and Augustus arrived for the poker game, Augustus carrying a flask and the _Daily Prophet_, and looking rather smug.

"What's that?" asked Fenrir, who was lounging on the sofa, listening to some singing sorceress.

"This," said Walden, cutting across Augustus, who looked as though he'd been about to speak, "is your salvation."

"Oh, is it?" said Fenrir, who was used, now, to Walden elevating things to a much higher status than they were in reality.

"Yes," said Walden, and Fenrir yawned, picking the food out of his teeth with a fingernail (being alone so often meant that manners had rather gone out the window).

"Listen to this." Walden took the newspaper from Augustus and unfurled it. It had a picture of a grinning man on the front cover, being mobbed by what looked like adoring (if a little scruffy) fans. He was holding a crystal bottle about the crowd, and seemed to be trying to talk to a reporter. The headline read 'DAMOCLES CLAIMS "WOLFSBANE" POTION AN END TO WEREWOLF CURSE'.

"What's that?" Fenrir's stomach gave a jolt, and he tried to pull himself up into a sitting position.

"Just wait. I'll tell you," said Walden. "Okay. There is a man in Yorkshire who claims to have created a potion that stops men… and women… suffering from lycanthropy from losing their minds when they make the transformation. That's the gist of this, anyway. We've brewed some for you. Apparently it tastes awful." He sounded mildly amused.

Fenrir stared at him, and looked between Walden and Augustus, wide-eyed. "But… What?" he said, unable to take it in.

"Yeah, that's right," said Augustus. "Took a bloody long time to make, too, so you'd best be grateful."

"I… am," said Fenrir, stunned. "I just… Really?"

"Yes," said Walden. "This man has spent years studying werewolves, and potions, and I suspect he won't mind having all the extra money floating about…"

"We thought you might like to know," said Augustus. "You were the first guy that sprang to mind. Granted, I don't know a lot of werewolves, but…"

"Are you being _serious_?" asked Fenrir, standing and staring at the flask clutched in Augustus's hand. He pointed to it. "Is it in there?"

Augustus nodded. Fenrir bit his lip, and raised his hands to his face, ran his fingers through his hair, and then laughed, unable to believe it. Augustus raised the flask.

"Here, you can have it if you want. I won't be needing it."

Fenrir stretched out a hand tentatively, and took the flask from him. He unscrewed the top hesitantly, and a small puff of blue smoke exuded. Fenrir took a sniff, and recoiled: it smelt awful.

"You're not messing me about, are you?" he asked. "I'm not drinking this, not if you're taking the piss."

"I'm not!" Augustus held up his hands. "Would I ever?"

Fenrir scanned the newspaper article. It seemed to be legitimate, and it seemed as though the potion was for real. It didn't stop the change, according to the article, but it made the transformation less painful and allowed the human to keep their own mind. Fenrir could not allow himself to believe it was for real just yet. He had been blacking out every month for as long as he could remember, losing himself to the beast inside him, killing people without remembering doing it, waking up with their blood on his hands. But now he was being offered an opportunity to change that. An opportunity to cling onto his humanity.

"When should I take it?" he asked.

"On the run up to the full moon," said Walden. "That's tonight," he added, as though Fenrir didn't know.

"What if it doesn't work?" asked Fenrir, sure that it wouldn't.

Walden shrugged. "Then we just keep you on the lead, I suppose."

"Heh." Fenrir scowled.

"Come along, then," said Walden. They went outside and Walden roughly took hold of his arm before they Disapparated, into the room with the beams and the low ceiling that Fenrir was now all too familiar with. He spend many evenings here, alone, waiting for the moon to rise, and woke up there many mornings, alone, feeling sick and covered in blood.

His leather collar hung on a hook on the far wall. It was a different collar than he had started out with; he had been through many different collars. The straining seemed to wear them down rather fast. The heavy chains dangled from it, resting on the floor and beginning to rust. The room stank. It had never been completely cleansed of all the blood and sweat that festered in it.

Walden and Augustus fetched the collar, as was their custom, while Fenrir undressed down to his undergarments. Walden and Augustus avoided looking at him, as was their custom, and took his clothes and wand with them when they left. This time, though, Augustus left the flask for him. Fenrir stared at it, wanting to wait until he was on his own before trying it, but Augustus didn't seem to want to leave, so Fenrir picked up the flask and flipped back the top. The disgusting smell wafted out again, and Fenrir gave a small cough.

"Alright, there?" asked Augustus.

"Mm," said Fenrir, trying not to choke and wishing Augustus would go away and let him humiliate himself in private. But he didn't, so Fenrir raised the foul-smelling thing to his lips, and pressed it there for a moment, before knocking it back.

It tasted like nothing he'd ever had before, like pepper and salt and metal and coffee and mud and bile and Stinksap, and he gave a hacking cough as his stomach churned, ready to spit it out.

"Keep it down," said Augustus lazily, and Fenrir was forced to swallow. He did so, trembling, then looked at Augustus with narrowed eyes that were stinging with tears.

"Good," said Augustus.

He turned and walked across the room, pulling the heavy door shut behind him and sliding the bolt into place. "I'll be back later," he said, opening a small sliding panel. "Until then, try not to go mental."

Wise words, thought Fenrir, as he heard Augustus's footsteps disappear up the hallway. If only he had some control over that. _But maybe you will tonight_, a voice in his head said. _Don't be stupid_, said another. _Nothing's going to change. Nothing ever changes._

As he stood alone, chained to the wall of a windowless room and waiting, Fenrir suddenly felt very young again, and very small. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of it all: perhaps, if he wished really hard, he wouldn't have to be a monster any more. Perhaps things would change for werewolves now.

The crunching in his stomach told him, as it always did, that the full moon was rising. His gut felt as though it was twisting into all sorts of unpleasant shapes, churning and threatening to spew up the horrible blue potion. He fell to his knees as they began to twist out of place, becoming malformed and hideous – and the pain was just as bad as ever. He screamed and howled as his gums bled and his bones cracked, and he wished and waited for the blackout, the sweet release… but it didn't come. Instead, he writhed, in excruciating agony, for what felt like years, crying and bleeding… but then it simply stopped, and faded away, and he was left on the floor, a leather collar around his neck and fur covering his body, as conscious as ever he had been.

He panted, trying to regain some energy. His tongue slipped out of his mouth, long and red. He felt it slide over his teeth, which were far too long and sharp. He looked down, and saw a long muzzle stretching out in front of him, ending in a coal-black nose and whiskers. Beneath him were large, hairy paws, with black claws protruding from them. He moved one arm, and the paw was lifted off the ground. It landed with a thump, and Fenrir could feel the muscles in his body absorb the shock. He tried to laugh, then, in realisation of what he was, but his throat didn't allow for that. Instead, there was a growling sound, and he felt something at the base of his spine move. He was wagging his tail.

He was aware, suddenly, of all the sounds and smells around him. Everything seemed so new, in this room that was so old and familiar. Smells lurked in every corner, and the ground beneath the pads of his paws felt so much more interesting now. He stood for a while, taking everything in, sniffing, listening to his own heartbeat, when he heard footsteps coming back down the corridor.

His ears pricked. Augustus and Walden were back. The door opened, and both men entered the room, holding their wands in front of them as though they expected Fenrir to attack. The seemed pleasantly surprised to find him subdued.

"Alright?" asked Augustus, cautiously.

Fenrir growled quietly, a mere rumble at the back of his throat. Walden seemed to relax.

"It worked then, did it?" he asked. Fenrir nodded, and both men laughed nervously.

"Come on, then," said Augustus. "We have a job for you to do."

/

The woman, they said, had angered the Death Eaters. She had shown disrespect to the Dark Lord and his followers. She was a campaigner for Muggle rights, and went against everything they stood for. Augustus and Walden didn't tell Fenrir anything about her except that she owned a red scarf and she would be walking home from the train station in just about ten minutes.

Walden showed Fenrir the scarf. He held it up to his nose. "Sniff it," he said. "This is how you'll know it's her."

The two men and the werewolf were lurking in the darkness of the shadow of an old Muggle youth centre. Walden was smoking a cigarette, and looked anxious. Augustus seemed relatively at ease, though he kept checking his pocket-watch.

"Time to go, now," he whispered to Fenrir. "Don't forget – the smell. We'll be here if you need us. Just howl." He laughed, and aimed a kick at Fenrir with the toe of his boot.

Fenrir, irritated, growled at him, but stirred himself from the sitting position he'd been it. The street was dark, and the ground was dirty, but Fenrir couldn't help being thrilled by it. He felt almost as though he was slightly drunk, although he knew he wasn't. It was just euphoria, sheer euphoria at not losing his mind.

He padded across the street, enjoying the feel of how his body moved. It felt so strong, and lithe, and in it, Fenrir felt powerful, knowing he had claws and teeth at his disposal.

He crept into the bushes at the far end of the street. They rustled slightly but there was no-one around to hear. Walden and Augustus seemed to have vanished into the night, though Fenrir knew they'd be back the instant he called.

Then he heard footsteps. They were coming towards him up the pavement, and they carried with them the smell he'd been told to remember – the smell of perfume and milk and honey. There was the smallest fraction of a second in which Fenrir allowed himself to see the woman as a human being, and to wonder if he should do what he was about to do, but then he thought of the Death Eaters, and how he needed to win their respect, and how he wanted to help them – and the thought was barely finished before he sprang from the bushes with his claws outstretched and his jaws hanging open.

The woman screamed. It was terrible, and it split the night, and for the briefest of moments Fenrir could see her face: wide green eyes and pale skin and soft pink lips, the beauty absent as she froze with terror. And then her face was gone, and all he could see was black and red as he tore into her and buried his muzzle in her flesh. Her blood was in his mouth suddenly, and in his eyes, and he bit into bone with a crunch. Teeth aching, he pulled away, and he felt her fumbling weakly in her pockets for something. He slashed at her with his paws, ungainly, not knowing quite how to work them, and, in a wild frenzy tore at her throat and shook her, warm blood flowing over his tongue. She struggled for a moment, and then lay quite still.

Fenrir stood back, still blinded by the blood, panting. His body shook with his heavy breath. He had done it. He had controlled the wolf. He had made it do his bidding. And yet, he thought, as he stood alone in the street, his breath hot and staining the air, his will seemed no longer to be any different from the wolf's. In this situation, they would have done the same thing.

_Am I any different from the wolf? I must be. I must be._

But he couldn't think of any reason why he was.

He stood there, shaking. He knew what he had done – he had killed someone in cold blood – and he had been totally aware of it. Why, then, did he feel no guilt? Had he become so used to it that it no longer mattered? Or was it just that monster inside him had grown more powerful?

And yet, he was not the monster now. He wore its skin, but he was still Fenrir. He could remember his childhood, and his days at school, and he could remember his friends, and he knew that what they were doing was wrong and yet he knew he craved acceptance and he knew that what he had done was wrong and yet he knew that he didn't care.

_You're not a monster._

_But you're not a man any more, either._

/

After the attack, things seemed to go back to normal astonishingly quickly for the rest of Fenrir's group of friends. Walden mentioned briefly how the Wolfsbane potion would make the job so much easier, and Augustus seemed to agree. Lestrange didn't mention a word of it – Fenrir got the feeling he was trying to pretend that the Death Eaters didn't exist.

But no-one seemed to be thanking him. Before, he hadn't minded, because, after all, he hadn't done anything on purpose. But now that he was giving up his time, he thought privately that he would have liked some appreciation shown. But no-one did seem to appreciate it. They just took it for granted that Fenrir would do what they told him, and he wasn't sure entirely why.

Was it because he was an outcast in their little group, often left at home while they went of doing whatever it was they did? Was it because they thought he wouldn't have minded? Or was it simply because he was werewolf, and they thought that frankly he was not as worthy as they were?

Their attitudes made him wildly angry, but only inside. He let it fester, scowling across the poker table at Walden and Augustus and on the full moon nights, he let himself take out the anger on whomever or whatever he could. He began to look forward to that one night a month. There, he could do what he liked, act however he wanted, and not have to worry about impressing someone that he would never impress.

_Humans_, he thought. _Wizards. Men. If they only knew what I was capable of._

He could have turned and slaughtered them all, if he'd wanted. He could have ripped their feeble bodies to shreds and left them weeping in a heap. He could have passed the curse (or blessing, now?) to them. He could have, but he didn't. Because he knew they would never accept it. They would never respect the sheer, raw power that came with it.

One night, he made a decision. The idea came to him quite suddenly, as he lay in his bed, thinking about all sorts of things. He knew that he had to escape from the wizards, and get away from Lestrange's house, because the isolation there was awful. And to do that, he decided, he needed a community of like-minded people – not monsters: werewolves were still people, after all – who would respect him, and treat him like an equal. He needed a community of werewolves.

But there were no werewolf communities he knew of. The wizards had forced all the werewolves into hiding. The easiest was of gathering a group of them together, Fenrir decided, was to _create_ one. But he couldn't just change wizards into werewolves willy-nilly. That would probably end up having a worse effect – people would hate werewolves more, for passing on the 'infection'. He needed people with a more open mind.

So that one night, as he lay in his bed, he came to a conclusion. A conclusion so simple, he could not believe he hadn't thought of it before. He would start with the children. The children would become the first members of his utopian werewolf society.

Happily, he rolled over and fell asleep.


	10. Howling Mad

****AN: I'm _so_ sorry for the long wait, I really am, but real life just got on top of me for a while. You know how it is.

I have decided to make this the last chapter of this story. I've done what I was planning to do with Fenrir so I don't think the story needs taken any further. However, I _may_ be planning another following his 'pack' but that will probably have a different tone so I feel it belongs in another story.

Anyway, I had an absolute blast writing this. Thank you to everyone who read/alerted/favourited and especially those few who reviewed. Perhaps, one final review? :)

This concludes Fenrir's transition. Thank you again.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Ten<strong>

**Howling Mad**

He stole a child from its cradle when its mother was looking the other way. Bonfires lit the sky and the town was celebrating some victory long forgotten. No-one noticed the wolf creeping in the shadows, and no-one noticed the absence of the screaming baby until it was too late.

Lestrange gave him a house to raise it in – an old family property, sprawling and abandoned and chilly. Fenrir knew that Lestrange had hated him for a long time, and was glad now to have an excuse to get rid of him, and the 'feral child', as he called it. Fenrir didn't question his motives. He wanted to be away from the Manor too. Their shift in attitude towards each other had been gradual; Fenrir supposed it had been instigated when he'd begun doing exactly as Walden and Augustus told him to. Lestrange, he knew, hated this whole Death Eater business, but he was too much of a coward to say or do anything about it. He just went along with it, and seemed to have expected Fenrir to take a stand.

But Fenrir didn't feel as though he had any fight left in him. He didn't like the Death Eaters much, either, but if he did as they asked they left him alone for the most part, and he was even able to use his position to make the 'new recruits' – the kids – do what he wanted. He organised it through Augustus – when the grizzling of the baby (or the 'cub', as they called it, and he had no motivation to argue) became too much for him, he'd have one of the junior members of the team sit with it for a night, while he drunk himself senseless.

It wasn't that he didn't care for the child. He did. It was a boy. He named it Loki. He was proud of the little fellow. It was with regret that he locked him away on full moon nights. He read to him, from history books, and told him stories that he made up as he went along. It really was marvellous, watching him grow every day, and seeing, for once, someone who actually looked up to him – but Loki seemed always to be hungry, and Fenrir couldn't cope. He was thrilled to have some power, at last, now, to be able to dump the child on someone the way so many people seemed to dump their duties on him, and he didn't feel guilty in the slightest about getting drunk in strange and seedy Muggle bars and waking up smelling of piss (this wasn't true, but he told himself it was).

But the 'babysitter' they sent seemed barely a child himself. Fenrir opened the door one day to find a scruffy kid who looked no more than twelve with an unruly mane of hair and a slightly snotty nose standing there.

"Whaddaya want?" he growled, assuming it was one of the Muggle neighbours.

"Fenrir Greyback, sir?" The kid stuck out his hand. "They sent me 'ere to do somethin' for you. Somethin' about a puppy, 'sat right?"

Fenrir squinted at him, his nose wrinkled, taking in his crumpled attire and ignoring his hand. The boy let it drop to his side, looking abashed.

"You are…?" said Fenrir.

"Scabior, sir. I work with the Death Eaters."

"Scabior who? You look about twelve."

"I'm seventeen!" Scabior protested.

Fenrir snorted. "And when did you decide death eating was a suitable career choice?"

Scabior shuffled uncomfortably, not looking remotely confident now, but rather as though he wanted to turn and run away. Fenrir sighed.

"The kid's in bed. I assume you've been told what you're to do. I'm going out. Don't tough anything. If you don't do this right, I'll rip your throat out and I'll eat it."

Scabior swallowed.

/

Fenrir found himself at a sort of pub that was strange even for wizards on one of his crawls. Everything was purple – too purple for his tastes – and green, which reminded him too much of school. That made him sort of miserable and melancholy, though it was sort of bittersweet, because he found he was able to order a posh and exquisite-sounding drink and sit gazing into thin air in a romantic sort of way, the way he imagined he would have had be become a poet. He was just considering how this was the perfect place for him, when he heard footsteps approaching (outside his line of poetic vision) and a voice said, "Is that you, Fenrir?"

Fenrir started, and looked into the face of the man who'd greeted him. Blue eyes twinkled over the top of half-moon spectacles, surrounded by greying hair, and Fenrir choked on his posh and exquisite-sounding drink. He had to splutter for a moment and attempt to regain composure, banging on his chest before being able to say, "Good afternoon, Professor Dumbledore."

"Not expecting to see me here, I take it?" said Dumbledore, with a hint of a chuckle in his voice.

"Erm," said Fenrir, not having anything else to say. "Erm, no, not really, Professor."

"Nor I you, Fenrir. I haven't heard much from you since you left the school. To what have you been applying your talents these days?"

"Erm," said Fenrir again. Dumbledore was smiling gently at him, and seemed to think that, somehow, Fenrir's life had turned out alright. _But he can't've_, thought Fenrir. The old man seemed to know everything. "I've just been… well… you know…" He gave up attempting to make up a profession, and fall deeper into the pit of quicksand that this conversation looked as though it was becoming.

"I've just been being hated and feared by the entire wizarding community, Professor, if you must know. I'm – I'm a werewolf, sir." He mumbled it, then looked immediately down into his drink, swirling it around and around just for something to do. He didn't see the look on Dumbledore's face but he was giving him ample opportunity to turn and walk away.

"Hated and feared, Fenrir? Surely not—"

"Yes," said Fenrir flatly. He liked Dumbledore – at least, he remembered liking him, but sitting alone in such a strange bar talking to an old Transfiguration teacher was not high on his list of things to do. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable now. He'd forgotten how awkward and painful it was to tell people he already knew about his 'condition'.

Dumbledore sighed, and Fenrir didn't look at him. "Perhaps, Fenrir, you ought to reconsider your friends," he said softly. "If that is what they lead you to believe, I doubt—"

"No offense," said Fenrir loudly, "but you don't have a clue what you're talking about, Professor." He did look up, then, and he met Dumbledore's eyes, but only for a second. He felt his face burn red as he averted his gaze. He hadn't met to shout. He never did. He never meant to fly off the handle. It just happened.

"If that is how you see it, Fenrir, I shall not attempt to persuade you to change your mind. But should you wish my advice, I will always accept your owls."

"Yeah," muttered Fenrir, string hard at a cigarette burn on the table. "Thanks."

Dumbledore said something else, probably something grandfatherly and wise, and then he left Fenrir alone, still blushing and seething slightly. Dumbledore _didn't_ have a clue what he was talking about, and it seemed presumptuous of him to offer advice. Fenrir scowled to himself and picked away at the burn with one of his fingernails.

_I'm a werewolf, sir. A werewolf, a werewolf, a werewolf._

/

One day, Augustus knocked on his door, and then entered without waiting for Fenrir to answer. Fenrir, who had just been leaving the kitchen to greet his visitor, was about to reprimand him, but didn't have much time, as Augustus thrust a paper under his nose.

"Have you been getting this?" he said.

"No," said Fenrir, staring at the _Daily Prophet_. He had long ago stopped caring about the state of the wizarding world. He would occasionally glance at copies that Lestrange had left lying around, but that was all. Any important news, he heard from the Death Eaters. But this headline bore his name.

'FULL MOON KILLER NAMED,' it read, 'FENRIR GREYBACK'.

"What's this?" asked Fenrir, feeling suddenly very small, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Under the Dark Lord's orders, Walden had it printed," said Augustus, thrusting the paper towards him, indicating that he should take it.

"Why?" asked Fenrir, doing so, a slight quaver in his voice.

"He seemed to think it would be more useful to us if you were a respected and feared name among the wizarding community."

"Said that in so many words, did he?" said Fenrir weakly, staring at the headline. It was clearly in focus, the bold letters the visual equivalent of a blaring foghorn, but the article below was swimming around in a hazy sea of meaningless letters. He had the vague idea that an artist's impression of what he might look like was positioned to the right-hand side, but he just couldn't see it.

"Not in so many words, no," said Augustus flatly. "But I assume that was the general idea. I'm to take you out to dinner tonight."

"Eh?"

"We have people to meet. Try to look threatening, and like you know what you're doing, alright? You're a hardened killer now, you are," said Augustus, trying to look him in the eye. "You don't need to do anything, just scare the bejeezus out of them, alright?"

/

When he met Augustus for dinner, Fenrir was wearing his second-best robes, having been told that it was a somewhat fancy eating establishment, and due to the fact that his best robes were in need of a wash. Augustus soon changed that, however, getting out his wand and burning a few holes here and there, tearing the fabric before Fenrir realised what he was up to.

"Oi!"

"Sorry, I just have to make you look a bit more werewolfy."

"I _am_ a bloody werewolf; how much more werewolfy can I be?" hissed Fenrir, falling silent as a maître d' passed and gave him a curious look.

_Werewolves must be kept on a lead._

The people they were to have dinner with seemed pleasant enough. It seemed to be to do with business. Augustus kept talking Galleons to the others (two men and a woman) and Fenrir couldn't really see his purpose there. He just tried to look imposing, as he assumed Augustus wanted, to be able to wheedle more money out of them, or something. They laughed, and made small talk, and Fenrir tried to sidestep personal questions, smiling politely and then remembering he was supposed to look rough, and grimacing. Their companions seemed to regard him as slightly strange anyway: he'd sort of forgotten how to sip drinks in a sophisticated way, and how to manoeuvre a knife and fork successfully.

He'd been told to excuse himself at Augustus' signal for the bathroom, and he did so.

("How clumsy of me," said Augustus, as he dropped his spoon.

"Please excuse me," said Fenrir, as a waiter arrived to pick it up. "I'll be back in a moment.")

In the toilets, he washed his hands and face and practiced his snarl in the mirror until it scolded him for wasting his companions' time.

When he returned to the table, the two men were looking at him with expressions of horror on their faces, and the woman could not seem to bring herself to look him in the eye. Fenrir sat down, slightly bewildered, and there was less talk after that. The meal finished soon after, and the shorter of the two men shook Augustus' hand and told him he would be in touch. Then they rushed from the restaurant, leaving Augustus and Fenrir alone with each other and several half-finished meals, and a bill that Fenrir was sure Augustus didn't pay, though he nodded to the waiter in a special way as he left.

The next month it was the woman he killed. He recognised her perfume.

/

The rumours continued to spread. According to the _Daily Prophet_, which he had now taken out a subscription with, he was seven feet tall with a face covered almost entirely in hair, walked with a limp, was blind in one eye and was incapable of human speech, communicating only in growls and snarls. He had last been spotted, apparently, near Glyn Ceiriog.

In truth, he was more commonly spotted at The Grey Porlock, a pub not five streets away from Lestrange's old house. True to his word, Walden had taught Fenrir how to talk to girls, and he sometimes managed to strike a conversation up with the witches he found there – provided they weren't put off by the sheer bulk of him or the slight whiff or the slightly wild look in his eyes. But mostly he just listened, to snatches of conversation while he lurked in a dank corner, miserably clutching a drink.

A man stumbled in one night, bringing the racket of the pub to a standstill, white in the face and clutching one arm that hung limp, blood seeping out from the torn fabric. His hair fell into his eyes, lank and brown, and he shook as he made his way to the bar.

"I've been attacked," he mumbled.

"Should I call a Healer?" asked a young barmaid, stricken.

"No," rasped the man. "I need… I need… Firewhiskey."

The man was served his Firewhiskey, on the house, and the other pub-goers hurried to buy him drinks as well, desperate to hear his tale.

"It was terrible!" he proclaimed, after a few, his injury apparently forgotten. "Terrible! It was this great beast with great flaming eyes!"

"It were probably _him_," said the older barmaid, raising an eyebrow and nodding her head knowingly.

"Him who?"

"That bloke they're all talkin' about. Been all over the news. Fenrir Greyback."

"Greyback?" went the whispers. "Fenrir Greyback?"

"But, sure, it's not the full moon tonight," said one voice from the back of the crowd.

"They say," said the landlady, "that he don't need the full moon to attack people now."

There was a collective gasp of horror and Fenrir's fist tightened around his glass, so tight he was sure he would break it. Somewhere in the crowd, someone shuddered.

"Oh, 'e's just 'orrible."

"You don't want to hear the things they say he does to the bodies of people after he's killed them – oh! I'm getting ill just thinking about it."

"And all those children, goin' missin'… What do you suppose he does with them?"

"I don't like to give it much thought meself."

_One child._

"He's with them Death Eaters, isn't he?"

"Aye. They say they're the only ones who can anywhere near control him."

That was enough for Fenrir. He gulped what was left of his drink (because angry though he was, he'd paid for it and it hadn't been cheap), slammed the glass on the table and stood up to leave. As he strode towards the door of the pub and into the night, he heard the voice of a man saying, "Tell you what, if he ever comes anywhere near here, I'll batter him to death with this barstool!" This was greeted by cheers from the crowd and offers of drinks for the man.

/

Most girls were happy to please him, but most girls had a price. It wasn't that he couldn't afford it – they were cheap as anything, but if he was honest he hated them. They smelt too strongly of the perfume they wore, and of other men, and had Fenrir not been so lonely he would have given up associating with them entirely. Sometimes he entertained fantasies that scared him, of ripping off not only their clothes but their very _skin_ – but he was always a perfect gentleman to them. At least, he pretended to be, and they pretended to be interested in him, and pretended not to notice that he smelt of dog.

For the briefest period of time, though, for what felt like a day but must have been in reality a number of months, he knew a girl who was different. She'd approached him. He'd been reading a book of Muggle children's stories – Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. He didn't know why he put himself through it but he needed something to fuel his sense of injustice. The girl had startled him, and he'd thought for a moment she'd known what and who he was – but she didn't. She started to talk with him, instead, about the Muggles and the wolf and the books, and Fenrir let her, because it had been a long time since anyone had wanted to talk with him about books.

The months he spent with her had no effect on his duties. He still went out at night and did what he had to do and he lied to her about it. He didn't want to lie, and he hated himself for it, but he didn't want to tell her the truth, because that would have shattered everything he'd had with her. He had a strange feeling inside of himself when he was with her. He didn't know what to call it.

But his thirst for blood seemed to increase with each day that passed. Part of the reason, he thought, was that rat of a boy Scabior. Loki loved him. Fenrir wasn't sure why, but he hated the boy for it. Perhaps it was some primal pack instinct or something of the like, but he couldn't stand the fact that the child – _his_ child – his _son_ for all intents and purposes – was being raised in part by…

By a wizard.

He told himself it was because Scabior was a wizard. And wizards had scorned and shamed him his entire life. It felt like his entire life, in any case, because the time when he had been a wizard seemed so long ago now. He felt so old – ancient, in fact, and it was all he could do when he came home to stop himself grabbing Scabior by the throat and mutilating him in the most horrendous way he could think of. _I should _change_ him_, he thought, but he didn't. Instead, he found more children, some of them younger than Loki and some already older, some with their identities intact and family names attached, but all of them were impressionable and all of them depended on him.

They did not belong to their families any more, he told them. Their families did not want them any more. They belonged to Fenrir now, they were wolves, they were his. But he was gentle about it, always gentle, and they believed him, and they trusted him, because the children were not cynics.

/

He pushed the girl away. They fought, and she cried. Fenrir remembered, a long time ago, feeling things that would have been called 'remorse' and 'pity' but it had been so long since he didn't know how to recognise them. 'Love', too. He didn't know if that was what it was. He knew she wanted to keep him, and he knew she knew he was a lot more dangerous and vicious that what he appeared to be to her, but for some reason she wanted him to stay. Fenrir didn't know why, but he knew that it frightened him. He could kill people, mercilessly and without warning, and without ever thinking about them again, but they were strangers, and this woman… _cared_ for him. If she put one foot out of line, if she spoke a word against the Death Eaters regime (and she would, he knew she would), he'd be ordered to kill her as though she was a particularly annoying fly. And what frightened him was that he knew he would.

He was sick of the whole thing. He barricaded himself in the house, with his children – his pack, Walden called them; was that the right name? – and he tried his best to protect them from the horrors of reality.

"People will tell you werewolves are dirty, that they're no better than dogs, but they're wrong. They're very wrong. You know that, don't you?"

"People – humans – think that because they've made a cosy little nest of a society for themselves that they can tell everyone else what's right and what's the right way to be."

"Werewolves understand each other. We don't judge. We're the ones who are thinking clearly. Not them."

The children listened to him, captivated, and they drank in every word and they seemed to understand. They loved Fenrir, and he – he was fiercely protective of them at the very least. He would have ripped the guts from anyone who treated them the way he had been treated in the blink of an eye.

The list of names of the reported dead grew and grew. Irma Winterbottom, Herbert Flitter, Ernest Clish, Paul Sheasby, Esther Atkinson, Alfred Dearborne, Quentin Prichard… Whoever. It didn't matter to Fenrir. Another month, another name. That's all they were, just a name. A name and the faint smell of blood. They weren't a mother or a father or a wife or a brother. They were just a name.

Nothing changed in Fenrir's world for a while. He raised the kids – or the cubs, as Walden called them. Walden was no longer a friend of him. He killed whoever it was he was supposed to. And he drank in the same pub.

When he was out, once, in the middle of each month, Scabior was still hanging around, keeping an eye on the children, although they were sensible enough to look after themselves. Fenrir made sure the children knew exactly who and what Scabior was, though, and he was certain they bullied him relentlessly. He smirked when the young man hurried out of the house upon his return, looking slightly traumatised and dishevelled, but he couldn't help feeling something like uncertainty about the whole thing. He liked Scabior, in a way. He was of good humour and had a sort of childish enthusiasm about whatever he did (at the beginning, anyway).

"'Snot what I thought it would be like," he told Fenrir when he was leaving one day. "Workin' for the Dark Lord. Thought it'd be more like bein' a pirate or somethin'."

Fenrir snorted.

/

Then one day, something did change. Fenrir was at the pub, as usual. He really did nothing there, having given up talking to the other customers. They mostly avoided him like he had a bad smell hanging around him – which, in truth, he probably did. But this particular evening, they were staring at him when they thought he wasn't looking, all alone in his dark corner, or whispering behind their hands. When he got up to get another drink, the sparse crowd seemed to part slightly, and when he reached the bartender, she had a frightened sort of look in her eyes, like a rabbit caught in front of a bus.

"Same again," he growled, having seen too much strange behaviour in his life to care much for this. She nodded, and, not taking her eyes off him, reached under the counter for a glass, poured his drink, and slid it across the counter to him. She croaked out the price, and he tossed the coins at her and turned to go.

He was almost back in his seat before from the silence somebody called out, "Murderer."

Fenrir froze. The crowd was holding its collective breath; a couple of people shuffled and the beer tap dripped but aside from that there was no noise. Fenrir turned, very slowly.

"What did you say?" His voice quivered slightly. Even to his own ears, he sounded angry; he'd spoken in the sort of tone that indicated quiet menace but inside his head he was panicking, feeling rather like a trapped rabbit himself now. How could anyone know who he was? He'd always been so careful. His house was protected by the Fidelius Charm – were the children alright? If these people knew, it wouldn't be long before the entire town was at his front door with pitchforks and torches – but how could they know? He'd never given his name to anyone. Not in years. He was registered a werewolf and now a murderer – that would have been stupidity.

A man forced his way from the back of the crowd, half-staggering and breathing alcohol fumes. In his hands he held a yellowed sheaf of parchments: this morning's paper. Fenrir's heart seemed to stop beating for a moment as he caught sight of himself on the front cover. A world away from the artist's impressions of a flea-ridden beast-man with protruding fangs, he was young again, smiling in an embarrassed sort of way at the camera and wearing an awful knitted Christmas jumper. He was nineteen years old, and already his hair was greying. 'MY SON IS A WEREWOLF,' read the headline. 'PARENTS OF PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER FENRIR GREYBACK SPEAK OUT'.

"We know what you did," said the man.

Fenrir swallowed. The crowd still looked uncomfortable. It didn't seem sure if it wanted to have any part in this or not.

"That's… That's not me," said Fenrir.

"Who is it, then, your twin brother?" The man held the paper up in front of him, squinting at it slightly. "You're a bit fatter now, but you got the same nose, and the eyes… You must be dead inside, 'cause there ain't nothin' there."

Fenrir snatched the paper from him, his eyes burring with hot, angry tears as he tried to read the article. Perhaps his parents were trying to reach out, to find him… Perhaps they wanted to forgive him…

"Yeah, have a good read, there," said the man. "I saw that this mornin' and I thought to myself, that looks a lot like that chap who always sits in the corner there. We'll string you up for this, you know that, don't you? Why'd you ever think you could get away with it? I used to be an Auror, you know, 'fore they chucked me out… 'Cause cowardly villains like you need hung, Greyback, you don't need no bloody _fair trial_ or any of the other soft bollocks they're servin' up nowadays…"

"Seymour, shut up!" somebody called out. The crowd seemed to be staring in awe at the man, who was standing unsteadily and shaking a finger dangerously close to Fenrir's face. Fenrir was only vaguely aware of this, his head was spinning and his eyes were too wet to see from. He blinked, hard, several times, and then, from the bottom of his throat he managed to produce a growl, snapping his jaws at the hand in front of him. Its owner gave a screech of laughter and took a step or two back.

"Yeah, that's right, _Seymour_," Fenrir hissed. "You get away. You should know better than to pick fights with murderers, what with all that Auror training behind you, shouldn't you?"

The crowd seemed to be becoming more hostile now, intent on backing up Seymour, whom they seemed to have decided was leader. Fenrir heard several knuckles crack. He wasn't stupid. He knew that now Seymour's apparent suspicions had been confirmed, an Auror squad would be arriving shortly, and he wasn't about to pick a fight with a crowd of angry bar-goers, no matter how big or strong he may have been in human form.

"See, that's the thing, though," said Seymour. "I'm not scared o' you, as you seem to think ev'ryone is. 'Cause I know you ain't gonna hurt me. You ain't even gonna touch me, 'cause I got backup and you're too scared. You ain't so hard when you ain't all wolfy, are you? And the full moon's still two weeks away, and by the time you manage to screw up enough courage I'll be well-prepared. And then the Aurors'll get you, Greyback. If I don't get you first."

Fenrir stared at him. The crowd seemed to be getting restless, listening to him, believing him, and Fenrir knew he was right. He couldn't fight them all at once – and what's more, he wouldn't, because killing with a wand seemed cold and detached and somehow evil, whereas a wolf attack – that was the most natural thing in the world, wasn't it? That was what werewolves were born to do; that was what the teeth and claws were for.

Fenrir scowled and knocked back his drink. Seymour laughed in a horrible sort of way, and turned to the crowd, jerking his head to Fenrir and inviting them to laugh with him. Hesitantly, a couple of the congregation chuckled, and Fenrir set his glass down hard. It made a sharp clacking sound on the table, and immediately the laughter subsided. It didn't seem to matter how many of them there were; they were dealing with a man known to kill people with his bare hands, and not one of them had wanted to be the first to let him see them draw their wand.

Fenrir scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping away the stray droplets of the drink. His hair was coarse and rough, and made the sores that had formed from eating raw eat sting. He gave another low growl, and eyed Seymour from beneath drawn eyebrows. Seymour stared back at him.

"Run," said Seymour. "While you've still got a chance."

There was a faint rustling of robes and Fenrir knew it was only a matter of seconds before someone made the first move. Ignoring whatever social protocol was (did it really matter, any more?) Fenrir Disapparated where he stood, but not before he'd heard a spell go whizzing past the place where his left ear had been. Someone rushed forward, and hands scrabbled at his cloak, but he was gone, into the night, into a street somewhere.

It was a street heavy with the odour of filth and rotting food, a street filled with the noises of Muggles dining and partying and celebrating. What had they to celebrate, thought Fenrir viciously. Couldn't they see what was going on, how everything was so wrong with the world?

He growled again, just to himself, and strode forward, dragging his fist along the rough brick wall. It hurt, yes, and it drew the faintest prickles of blood, but it didn't matter. They'd be crying out for more of his blood soon, if they weren't already. Why weren't they scared of him? Because he was the Death Eaters' lapdog, was that it? Because he did what he was told and was such a gentle man by day? He snorted, and dug his nails into the brick. It crumbled slightly, but his nails cracked more than the brick and he yelped.

By the light of the streetlamps, he could make out words written on the _Prophet_ still scrunched in his free hand. He shook it open, and read all about his childhood. How he had been such a bright young boy. Such a promising young man. Such a talented wizard. So sweet. So clever.

"But he always had a bit of a mean streak," his mother was quoted as saying. "I should have realised earlier, I mean, he was Sorted into Slytherin, for goodness' sake, and why would he be, when my entire family were in Ravenclaw?"

Fenrir read through the article at such a speed his mind began tripping over itself. His mother seemed to have conveniently forgotten that his father was a Slytherin, or it had been cut from the interview. Fenrir, however, very much doubted the latter. His mother had never trusted him, apparently, and that made him ache inside. She _had_ loved him, of course she had – she was his mother, for heavens' sake! She couldn't have known how he would turn out.

He wanted to scream at her, to tell her it wasn't her fault, to tell her he knew his father was forcing her to this, that he wanted her and loved her and needed her to take care of him – but he couldn't, because he knew that was a lie. It _was_ her fault. She'd listened to his father, who'd turned his back on him, exactly the way everyone else had when he'd needed them.

He read the article through, again and again, hating it more each time and hating his mother and father, too, for their utter, utter betrayal. In a rage, he flung the paper onto the street. It fluttered down gently, landing with an inappropriately soft crinkling sound, but Fenrir was too consumed with rage to notice or care. He threw his head back, tearing at his hair, and a horrible, shrieking sort of noise split the night. It took Fenrir a moment to realise what it was.

He was howling.

He'd never done it before, not as himself. Well, not as a man, anyway, but surely man and beast were one, after all. The line seemed completely blurred now, and Fenrir wondered if there had ever been a barrier between the two after all. But as the end of his howl died on his dry throat, he knew that whatever he was, he wasn't anybody's lapdog.

The lights of a bar flickered behind a door at the end of the street. Fenrir went forward, shaking with anger, to the source of the light. He pulled open the door, revealing an almost-empty Muggle pub. The bartender glanced up when he entered. He said something benign and trite that Fenrir couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears.

"A drink," said Fenrir, assuming that was what he had been asked. A drink to steady his nerves. A drink to help him do what he needed to do. "I'm Fenrir Greyback. I'm a cold-blooded killer. I'm a monster. And I want a drink."

"Whatever you say," shrugged the barman, and pulled him a pint.

/

Fenrir stood in the open and sniffed the air. It was the dead of night. No birds sang and only the moon gave light to the little country lane in which he stood. He had used the wolf's senses for the first time tonight, made as full use of them as he could. He had traced the man's smell – _Seymour_ – back to the house that sat at the top of this gently sloping hill.

It was a crooked sort of house, next to a crooked sort of tree, with a lonely dog tied under it and the moon hanging over it. It was a half moon, and to Fenrir that usually meant nothing, but tonight he was overwhelmed by how beautiful it seemed. His face cracked into a smile, and he set off for the house.

He had the courtesy to knock. He knocked several times, pounding his fist against chipped black-painted wood, before a young girl answered the door, her dark hair falling over her face and her eyes heavy with sleep.

"What do you want?" she said flatly.

"Oh," said Fenrir. He hadn't been expecting, somehow, for anyone else to be in the house. The girl looked to have barely reached her teens, and he assumed she belonged to Seymour. "Is your father here?"

"Why?" The girl narrowed her eyes. "It's late. He's… in bed."

She seemed to sense, somehow, that Fenrir was not just 'a mate from the pub'. Maybe it was the menace in his eyes, or the way he stood, or the way he smelt, but she was about to shut the door in his face when a blow from his fist sent her tripping backwards into the hallway. She stumbled over her own feet, unsteadily, and careered backwards into a spindly table holding a heavy vase. There was a crash, and then a sickening thud, and Fenrir smelt briefly the blood that trickled from her head.

He could hear her breathing, faint though it was, but he didn't care if she was alive or dead. He was here for one reason and one reason only – and that was the man he could hear struggling to his feet in the next room.

He tramped over the girl's body, clumsily feeling along the cold, dark walls for the door. He thrust it open, and it obeyed with a series of hacking creaks, and inside the kitchen he found Seymour, silhouetted the window and clutching his wand. He was swaying slightly on the spot, looking confused, evidently woken from a drunken stupor and wondering whether the sounds of the intruder he'd heard were real.

"You," he mumbled, as Fenrir stepped out from the shadows and the soft moonlight brought his features into view. "What are _you_ doing here?" Then his face broke into a wicked sort of grin. "Come to face me like a man, have you?" There was a moment of hesitation before he waved his wand in front of him.

"Yes," growled Fenrir, advancing, snatching the wand from his loose fist as soon as it was up and without giving the matter a second thought, snapping it in two. "So why don't _you_ face _me_ like a man, eh?"

His face was barely an inch away from Seymour's now, and he could see the fear and confusion in him eyes and it was almost enough to make him rethink his plan. Almost.

"You see, I don't have my wand," Fenrir clarified, trying to make sense of his words through his muddled thoughts. He needed to say it right. He needed this man to know why he was here. He could feel Seymour's breath on his face. The other man was rigid with fear now.

"All I brought," said Fenrir, "was me." And then there was a moment of hesitation, in which he repeated himself internally, and smiled, and nodded at Seymour (_you understand, don't you?_) And then he lunged for him, fingers closing round his throat and forcing him back into the glass of the window. His nails, which had never looked more like claws than they did now, were piercing his skin, his very flesh, blood oozing out and running down his hands.

Seymour's fists pounded against his back and he felt teeth scraping against the side of his neck. Seymour was screaming, screeching, crying out for someone (his daughter, probably) to help, flailing and kicking at whatever part of Fenrir he could reach.

"HELP ME! HELP! HE'S A MANIAC!"

"SHUT UP!" Fenrir pressed the heel of his palm into the man's windpipe, cutting off the air. Seymour spluttered. "I just want to let you know, _Seymour_, before you die, that I'm not a coward. And I am not anybody's lapdog. I am a werewolf. I am a man. I am _Fenrir Greyback_ and I am going to kill you and I am going to do it with my bare hands and my teeth and after that I will eat you and it doesn't matter what form I am in, I shall enjoy it, do you understand me?"

His claws – nails – were digging into Seymour's cheeks now. The other man was struggling, clearly in pain, still feebly kicking, and he somehow managed to draw enough breath for a spluttering laugh.

"I'm not scared of you. HEL—"

"You should be." Fenrir shoved him into the window pane again, and Seymour's breath caught in his throat. "Everyone should be scared of me, and when I'm done with you, Seymour, there won't be any reason why they shouldn't be."

Seymour laughed again, but the sound was weaker this time, frightened. "You're mad," he wheezed. "Absolutely – bloody – _mad_."

Fenrir stared into his eyes, and then was possessed by a sort of delirium that threatened to eradicate his senses. For the first time in so long, something a wizard had said was unequivocally true. He was, indisputably and beyond a doubt, completely and utterly mad. It was all he could do to keep himself focused on the task and from bursting into gales of laughter. Instead, he howled, and as the blood splattered onto the windowpane the lonely dog under the tree echoed the sound, crying to the moon in the still and silent night.

_The End_


End file.
